Sanda_Issue_February-2019

13
How Often? More
Isn’t Always Better
Although people claim that
more frequent sex is more fun,
scientists say that this is no longer
significant at a frequency of more
than once a week. Says a 2015
report published by the Society for
Personality and Social Psychology,
"Our findings suggest that it's
important to maintain an intimate
connection with your partner,
but you don't need to have
sex everyday as long as you're
maintaining that connection."
Some previous studies, and a
plethora of articles and self-help
books, have claimed that more
sex equals more happiness. But
a study, published online in the
journal 'Social Psychological
and Personality Science', and
based on surveys of more than
30,000 people collected over four
decades, is the first to find that
the association is not there after
couples report having sex more
than once a week on average. The
study was not designed to identify
the causal process, so does not tell
us whether having sex up to once
a week makes couples happier,
or being in a happy relationship
causes people to have more
frequent sex (up to once a week).
In addition, these findings were
specific to people in romantic
relationships and, in fact, there
was no association between
sexual frequency and wellbeing
for single people, says lead
researcher Amy Muise, a social
psychologist. It's possible that for
single people, the link between
sex and happiness is dependent
on a number of factors such as the
relationship context in which the
sex occurs and how comfortable
people are with sex outside of
relationship. The findings are
most representative of married
heterosexual couples or those in
established relationships.
yourwellness.com