Sex and Masturbation Affect the Quality of Sleep Verified by Scientists

Australian scientists have conducted a new study that proves the positive effect of sexual activity on sleep quality (spoiler – masturbation works too)! Thus, respondents who had sex or masturbated before bed in the morning felt better and showed greater motivation (according to Naked Science).

Even before this, the scientific and medical community had an established opinion that sex has a qualitative effect on sleep and its depth. Especially if you managed to experience an orgasm the day before. But the conclusions were mostly made based on theoretical developments, which state that sexual release entails high hormonal activity and the release of hormones, including those that have a sedative effect and relax the body. In addition, several specialists have already attempted to confirm these findings in their reports. However, they were often subjective and were not fully representative.

Finally, researchers from the Australian Central Queensland University and Flinders University took on the problem – they set out to prove the beneficial effect of sex on sleep on an objective sample. For example, they used polysomnography (a digital method for identifying the characteristics of the sleep process). The results of their study were published in the Sleep Health publication. Thus, the scientists assessed the degree of impact of various types of sexual activity (including masturbation) on sleep, as well as the impact of abstaining from them. Thus, they were most interested in the metrics of how the experience before sleep and subsequent sleep affect the well-being of the body in the morning hours.

The entire research process took over a year, but the experiments were conducted in just 11 days. Each respondent had a small polysomnography device attached to their head, which assessed the depth of sleep using several objective metrics. Subjective indicators were also used, which respondents recorded in a special report.

It turned out that if people were sexually active in the evening, their sleep was of much better quality, and the people themselves felt more energized and motivated the next day (compared to days when there was no sexual activity).

It is worth noting that it was sexual contact with a partner that had a significantly greater effect than masturbation. At the same time, the authors noted that masturbation was also effective compared to the absence of sexual release.

One of the few shortcomings of the study is its small number of participants. The researchers recruited only 14 people (couples), none of whom had children. It is important to note that, according to the conditions of participation, respondents should not have obvious sleep disorders, have sex at least once every 7 days, and also sleep with their partner in the same bed.