9 hours Ago
Want to sleep deeper and wake up less? New research says getting intimate before bed—with a partner or solo—boosts sleep quality and syncs your REM cycles. Study: Sleep on it: A pilot study exploring the impact of sexual activity on sleep outcomes in cohabiting couples . Image Credit: Roman Samborskyi / Shutterstock In a recent study published in the journal Sleep Health , researchers in Australia investigated how sexual activity affects sleep outcomes.
Sexual behavior, especially an orgasm, is known to have soporific effects on subsequent sleep. While the underlying mechanisms remain unclear, the inhibition of cortisol and the release of prolactin and oxytocin reportedly have relaxing properties. Oxytocin is elevated after sexual intercourse, and it has been associated with an improved quality of life and sleep and lower cortisol levels.
Further, prolactin increases after an orgasm and is often associated with sexual satisfaction and orgasm quality. While anecdotal evidence indicates that sexual activity may improve subsequent sleep, data on objective sleep behavior are limited. Moreover, no study has investigated how sexual activity influences sleep stage concordance.
Importantly, both partnered sex and solo masturbation were associated with measurable sleep benefits in this study. About the study Participants who had partnered sex before bed felt more motivated and ready to tackle the next day, highlighting possible daytime benefits beyond sleep. In the present study, researchers examined the impact of sexual activity on subjective and objective sleep parameters.
They recruited healthy-sleeping heterosexual couples aged ≥ 18 years actively living together and engaging in sexual activity more than once weekly. Pregnant individuals, subjects diagnosed with sleep disorders, and those with children were excluded. Participants were also required to reside in South Australia.
Potential participants completed a pre-screening questionnaire on demographic information. Participants attended an information session detailing the study protocol and the operation of a headband (DREEM3) and related software. Subsequently, subjects were monitored for 11 nights using a counter-balanced, repeated-measures, cross-over design to ensure that sexual activity conditions (partnered sex, no sex, and solo masturbation) were distributed across weekdays and weekends.
Participants completed self-reported sleep and sex diary as well as objective measures of sleep. Couples in the no-sex condition followed their usual pre-sleep behaviors without sexual activity. In other conditions, they engaged in sexual activity as the last behavior before sleep.
Subjects performed solo masturbation and slept (alone) in separate rooms. Participants were asked to use their headbands after sexual activity before sleep — a step the authors noted may have disrupted sleep latency measurements. The headband was used for polysomnography, which records and analyzes physiological sleep data.
Participants also recorded their motivation and readiness for the upcoming day on a 100-point scale. Linear mixed models were used to assess the impact of sex conditions on each sleep measure. Further, sleep stage concordance was estimated to determine how sexual activity with a partner affects the synchronization of sleep stages.
Findings Women slept 30 minutes longer after partnered sex compared to nights without sexual activity, while men saw no significant change in total sleep time. Of the 221 individuals who expressed interest in participation, 132 provided information to proceed through the preliminary recruitment process. Following exclusion criteria, 14 participants (7 couples with a mean age of 29.
9 years) were included. On average, participants engaged in solo masturbation for 19.3 minutes and partnered sex for 33.
3 minutes. Overall, participants had a higher sleep efficiency, spent less time awake at night, attempted sleep later, and were more motivated and ready for the upcoming day in the partnered sex condition compared to those who had no sexual activity with their partner. Similar improvements in sleep efficiency and reduced wakefulness during the night were also observed following solo masturbation.
Women, in particular, slept longer and experienced less wakefulness after partnered sex or solo masturbation. Further, there was a significant effect of sex condition on wake-after-sleep onset (WASO), sleep efficiency, and bedtime. No significant differences were observed between sex conditions and total sleep time, sleep latency, subjective sleep quality, or wake-up time.
However, subjective sleep quality showed a non-significant trend toward improvement after partnered sex. The mean orgasm intensity (scored on a 100-point scale) was 74. Orgasm intensity was significantly correlated with motivation, readiness (for the next day), and subjective sleep quality.
Subjects in the no-sex condition spent more time awake post-sleep onset than in other conditions. Further, there was a significant effect of sex condition on stage 1 sleep (N1) duration, with participants spending more time in N1 in the no-sex condition compared to solo masturbation. In addition, there was a significant difference in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep between sleeping alone after solo masturbation and sleeping together with or without sexual activity with a partner.
REM sleep concordance was longer when sleeping together, regardless of whether sexual activity occurred. Conclusions Orgasm intensity directly correlated with next-day motivation, with participants scoring 74/100 on average reporting higher readiness to tackle tasks. Taken together, objectively measured sleep efficiency and WASO improved after sexual activity or solo masturbation compared to no sexual activity, suggesting that this small-scale pilot study indicates that sexual activity improves sleep quality.
This suggests that sexual activity — whether with a partner or alone — may be a potentially useful non-pharmacological method to enhance sleep. REM sleep concordance was longer when sleeping together, regardless of sexual activity. The study’s limitations include a smaller sample size, inclusion of only heterosexual couples, the focus on healthy sleepers, the requirement to reside in South Australia, and no control for relationship satisfaction, attachment style, and menstrual cycle, among others.
Lastella M, Miller DJ, Montero A, et al. Sleep on it: A pilot study exploring the impact of sexual activity on sleep outcomes in cohabiting couples. Sleep Health, 2025.
doi:10.1016/j.sleh.
2024.11.004, https://www.
sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(24)00261-4/fulltext.
