People have long associated a healthy, active sex life with a lengthened lifespan and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. We know that sex also boosts the body’s ability to make protective antibodies against bacteria, viruses, and other germs that cause common illnesses.
One 2013 study found that older men and women with an active sex life appeared five to seven years younger than their actual age.
Other studies indicate that merely thinking about doing the deed can lead to better critical thinking performance. Practitioners of bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism (BDSM), in particular, have been shown to have better mental health than those less kinky.
But that’s not all, it seems. More recent research suggests that sex may have powerful emotional benefits, as well. Sex seems to strengthen relationships and adds happiness and actual meaning to life.
Sex Makes You Happy in More Ways than You Think
Researchers from George Mason University discovered as much when they used daily diaries to examine the link between sexual behavior and well-being.
The researchers asked 152 college students to keep a record of their sexual behaviors, emotions, and feelings every day for three weeks. The scientists measured the well-being of the students by their positive feelings, mood, and how meaningful they felt that their life was each day.
People were happier, more relaxed, and found more meaning in their lives the day after any kind of sexual activity, from kissing to sexual intercourse, the researchers found.
This link did not depend on how satisfying or intimate the experience was, or whether the subjects were in a relationship. Any sort of sexual experience seems to improve well-being.
Like Money in the Bank
To be clear, researchers had long ago established a link between having sex and feeling pleased with yourself and the world, too. In 2004, economists studying data from 16,000 adults concluded that having sex once a week increased happiness to an extent comparable to an additional $50,000 in the bank.
But while this and similar studies, which relied on surveys, revealed an association between sex and happiness, they did not show that more sex causes greater happiness. None of the previous investigations could convincingly prove causality or disprove the possibility that happier people just happen to have more sex.
Psychologist Todd Kashdan, who led the George Mason University research team, says the findings of their research propose a whole new dimension in defining human well-being.
“With the exception of evolutionary psychology, there is a long list of thinkers who ignore the explicit role of sexuality in their understanding of well-being,” says Kashdan in an article for Psychology Today.
Hence, the focus of his team’s research was on psychological and sexual needs that are as important as physical needs for thirst, hunger, and shelter.
“We think about sex, fantasize about sex, and – preferably – have sex,” says Kashdan. “Which begs the question, ‘Why is sexuality ignored in modern models of well-being?’”
Vulnerability and Acceptance
Having raised an important question, Kashdan is quick to point out that the opposite was not true. Happiness did not predict more sexual behavior in their analysis. This, he says, bolsters the research team’s claim that the connection between sex and well-being is due to the sex itself.
People’s fundamental need to belong is likely at the root of the effect, says Kashdan. In short, sexual contact communicates a deeper acceptance from those with whom we are intimate.
“There is something profound about someone else giving you access to their body and accepting access to yours,” Kashdan says.
This experience of vulnerability and acceptance, Kashdan and his team assert can be a powerful signal of inclusion that improves emotional health.
Casual Sex vs. Sex Under Pressure
There is a small caveat to all this. That is, that sex for reasons other than pleasure might have the opposite effect. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University learned this much in 2015 when they asked 32 random couples to double the frequency of their sexual relations.
Some couples in the experimental group did manage to double the rate of intercourse, and on average there was a 40 percent increase.
The additional rounds of slap-and-tickle did not make them happier, though. Their well-being declined, especially in measures of energy and enthusiasm, as did the quality of the sex. Both men and women in the group reported that the additional intercourse wasn’t much fun.
The results surprised the researchers – but they probably shouldn’t have, according to George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon, who led the study.
“It seems that if you’re having sex for a reason other than because you like and want sex,” he says, “you may undermine the quality of that sex and your resulting mood.”
These findings coincide with findings from Kashdan’s other research, which indicates that pressure-free sex appears to have beneficial consequences in people who suffer mood disorders and social anxiety.
All You Need is Sex
In 2013, Kashdan led another research team in an investigation of how people with clinical levels of social anxiety reacted to sexual encounters. Using a similar method of daily diaries, the subjects in this study recorded their sexual experiences, worries about being judged by others, and feelings of inferiority.
The day after a pleasurable casual sex experience, those with clinical levels of social anxiety seemed to show greater benefit from the sex than those with low social anxiety.
The subjects were less concerned with how people viewed them and held themselves in higher esteem, again suggesting that sex may foster a significant sense of social acceptance. But a person’s relationship with their sexual partner matters, too, Kashdan’s more recent study reveals.
When researchers asked participants to rate how “close and connected” they felt to their partner during sex, that rating did not accurately predict well-being the next day.
However, when examining those in romantic relationships, additional feelings of well-being did come from especially satisfying and intimate sexual contact, the researchers found.
This has led Kashdan and his team to conclude that intimate and satisfying sex increases well-being in people in all types of relationships. But this was especially true for those in closer, more loving relationships.
It’s this reaffirmation and good will upon leaving the bedroom that is beneficial to a close relationship, Kashdan says.
“Sex is an important therapeutic way of enhancing well-being and connecting with a partner,” Kashdan told Time Magazine recently. It’s a powerful potential antidote to loneliness or social isolation – a “therapy without therapists,” he added.
To ponder too openly about the meaning of life and happiness might seem an eccentric, futile, and absurd pastime. At best, the question appears more properly a subject of philosophic inquiry rather than a practical, everyday pursuit.
But in truth, it is for all of us to wonder about, define, and work towards a more meaningful existence.
What Kashdan’s research might say about our socially-distanced times is at once poignant, obvious, and ironic. Now, when social bonds are more important than ever, the solution we all seek may lie just a few steps away – in the bedroom.
