Why better sleep means a better sex life Sleeping With Science
Transcriber:
As my dear friend,
Dr. Wendy Troxel often says,
“Sleep is the new sex.”
And she’s right.
A good night’s sleep
will do many things for the vibrancy,
the intimacy, even the vitality
of your relationship.
[Sleeping With Science]
First, when couples
are not getting enough sleep,
they have more conflicts the next day.
And furthermore, they don’t resolve
those conflicts nearly as well,
in part because of a loss of empathy
between those two individuals.
Second, our reproductive hormones suffer,
which we know are critical
for healthy sexual relationship.
For example, young men who are sleeping
just five hours a night for one week
will have a level of testosterone
which is that of someone
10 years their senior.
In other words, a lack of sleep
will age a man by a decade
when it comes to certain aspects
of wellness and virility.
And we see similar impairments
in female reproductive health
caused by a lack of sleep.
Indeed, insufficient sleep
has been associated with impairments
in estrogen, in luteinizing hormone
and also in follicle stimulating hormone,
all of which are critical
for female sexual health
as well as fertility.
Third, we’ve discovered that for a woman,
just one hour of extra sleep
is associated with a 14 percent
increased likelihood
of her wanting to be physically
intimate with her partner.
So that’s the impact of sleep on sex.
But it turns out that sex
can also have an impact on sleep.
We know that sex before bed,
resulting in orgasm,
is associated with significant
improvements in subjective sleep quality.
And we’ve even seen similar
sleep associations with masturbation.
So what does all of this tell us then?
Well, sleep and sex are powerful
and playful bedfellows.
Sleep is one of the very foundations
of a happy, fulfilling
and sexually vibrant relationship.