Too Much Sex Could Make You Miserable, New Study Claims

While most people assume that having lots of sex with their partner or partners is a good thing, and certainly something that makes them happy, a new study is claiming that the very opposite is true.

According to a new study, U.S.-based researchers found that having sex often lacks spontaneity, romance, and desire, and therefore can make people feel miserable and depressed.

According to the scientists from the Carnegie Mellon University who carried out the study, it’s all about the quality of the sex and not the quantity.

The researchers reached their conclusions after assigning couples to have more sex to see if it improved the relationship as well as their relative happiness and fulfilment.

The 128 participants in the study, who were married, heterosexual, and between the ages of 35 and 65, were split into two distinct groups. The first group received no instructions on sexual frequency, while the second group was asked to double the frequency of their weekly sexual intercourse.

While the second group definitely had more sex, they displayed a slight decrease in their happiness levels and general feelings of well-being.

The researchers also found that the second group experienced lower sexual desire as well as a significant decrease in fulfilling sex.

George Loewenstein, who headed up the study, said to reporters about the findings, “Perhaps couples changed the story they told themselves about why they were having sex, from an activity voluntarily engaged in to one that was part of a research study. If we ran the study again, and could afford to do it, we would try to encourage subjects into initiating more sex in ways that put them in a sexy frame of mind, perhaps with baby-sitting, hotel rooms or Egyptian sheets, rather than directing them to do so.”

Although the results of the study were pretty clear, Loewenstein said he still believes that couples should have more sex, in the right ways, to benefit their relationships and levels of contentment.

Another scientist involved in the study, Tamar Krishnamurti, added, “The desire to have sex decreases much more quickly than the enjoyment of sex once it’s been initiated. Instead of focusing on increasing sexual frequency to the levels they experienced at the beginning of a relationship, couples may want to work on creating an environment that sparks their desire and makes the sex that they do have even more fun.”

[Image credit: teepr.com]