Can masturbating at night help you sleep? Research reveals the truth: useless! Unless you have sex with your partner
Whether “sexual behavior” can help sleep has been one of the issues that have been debated for a long time in the academic community. A study now published in the “Journal of Sleep Research” confirms that sexual intercourse may indeed help shorten the “sleep latency” and help you fall asleep faster; however, such benefits only exist for sexual intercourse with the opposite sex. Sexual intercourse is achieved through masturbation. Orgasm, may be less relevant for helping you fall asleep.
Can masturbating at night help you sleep? Research reveals: Unless you have “sex” with your partner
A research team from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands recruited 256 subjects to explore the impact of sexual activity on sleep. The research direction was divided into “cross-sectional research” and “longitudinal research.” Participants were asked to complete a 14-day personalized sleep survey; in addition, participants completed a questionnaire on demographic characteristics, mental health or sleep disorders, sexual dysfunction, medications, and alcohol and caffeine intake.
After the cross-sectional study, the subjects kept a sleep diary for 14 consecutive days, which included core consensus sleep records, drinking status, and female menstrual records. The subjects also needed to indicate whether they had engaged in sexual activity during the study to complete the longitudinal study. On the final day of the study, subjects also responded by assessing honesty, social desirability, and the occurrence of life-changing events.
Cross-sectional study results show that “partner sex” and “orgasm” achieved by “masturbation” are both believed to shorten the time it takes to fall asleep and improve the sleep quality of men and women. In addition, subjects’ self-reports also pointed out that whether it is partnered sex or masturbation, as long as orgasm is not achieved, sleep latency may be increased and sleep quality reduced, with the negative impact on men being greater.
However, the results of longitudinal studies show that although sexual intercourse accompanied by orgasm reduces sleep latency and improves sleep quality, orgasm after masturbation has no effect on sleep quality. Likewise, partnered sexual intercourse and masturbation that do not lead to orgasm actually have very little to do with impaired sleep quality, meaning that a lack of sexual intercourse is unlikely to have any impact on sleep behavior.
Is it better to sleep in bed with your partner at night? The secretion of “prolactin” in the brain is a key?
In this regard, study author Carlotta Florentine Oesterling pointed out that the research results support the hypothesis that “reaching orgasm during sexual intercourse will reduce subjective sleep latency and improve subjective sleep quality in both men and women.” However, masturbation did not produce detectable effects in longitudinal studies. Impact. Although previous literature suggests that either having sex with a partner or masturbating can affect sleep quality, in this study, the impact of partner sex may be stronger and more relevant, reducing the association of masturbation with sleep.
Oesterling said that some experts have pointed out that the secretion of “prolactin” in the brain during orgasm after sexual intercourse is four times that of orgasm caused by masturbation. Because prolactin helps promote sleep and conveys feedback about sexual satisfaction, this may explain why partnered sex is often considered more satisfying than masturbation and why partnered sex is more sleep-promoting than masturbation. In addition to the influence of prolactin, neuroendocrine changes after orgasm are also potential causes that help reduce sleep latency and improve sleep quality.
Furthermore, the sex differences reported in this study suggest that when the effects of orgasm on sleep are assessed, the effects are less pronounced in men and may stem from differences in orgasm frequency between men and women. In recent years, studies have pointed out that orgasm frequency affects 3.1% of the difference in subjective sleep latency; subjects who have an orgasm every time they have sexual activity have an average time to fall asleep faster than those who have a lower orgasm frequency or never orgasm. 12 minutes.
Orgasm and relationship impact each other? Failure to “reach the standard” may affect mood and sleep quality
Oesterling added that other factors that accompany orgasm may also have a positive impact on sleep, such as the experience of intimacy with a partner that promotes bonding, happiness and emotional regulation. Non-sexual hugs have been shown to have calming, sleep-promoting effects, especially in women. Compared to masturbation, partnered sex is often associated with more intense and prolonged physical activity, resulting in a highly relaxed state afterwards.
Finally, psychological effects such as relationship satisfaction, feelings of loving and being loved, and a sense of belonging or security are also worth considering and have been shown to affect sleep. Emotionally satisfied people fall asleep on average 10-12 minutes faster than emotionally dissatisfied people; and orgasm frequency and emotional satisfaction are higher when having sex with a long-term partner compared to casual sex.
Conversely, infrequent sex may harm the relationship, making it more difficult to achieve orgasm and causing the partner’s mood to suffer, and negative mood has historically been linked to poorer sleep quality. Oesterling believes that although this study found a link between sexual behavior and sleep, if this theory needs to be further strengthened, it needs to be confirmed with a larger sample size and more complex research methods.
Source: The influence of sexual activity on sleep: A diary study
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