It feels as if we’re constantly getting new information about sex: how much we should be having, what kind, where.
But it turns out, you don’t have to be Anastacia Steele in the bedroom to reap the health benefits of getting jiggy with it, nor do you have to be jumping on your partner at every opportune moment.
An article published in Social Psychological and Personality Science states that sex just once a week gives you the health benefits everyone is so vocal about – and any more is simply for enjoyment alone.
Regular intercourse lowers your blood pressure, stimulates your nervous system, burns fat and can even alleviate pain. But for many the stress of feeling like we should be having more sex, all day, every day, can actually be to the detriment of wellbeing.
It should be welcome news to those people then, that having sex any more than once a week doesn’t give you any added health benefits.
“As we predicted and consistent with the results from our first study, sexual frequency had a positive linear association with satisfaction with life… Sexual frequency also had a positive linear association with relationship satisfaction,” reads the study.
“The current set of studies help dispel the notion that sex has limitless benefits for well-being,” concludes the piece, “and instead, indicate that at least for people in romantic relationships, sexual frequency is no longer significantly associated with well-being at a frequency greater than once a week.”
