Over 50? Have more sex!

A good sex-life in your later years brings with it a host of benefits – from a healthier heart to an antidote to depression

SO YOU think the answer to a good, long life is to eat well, drink moderately and do brain-boosting things such as crossword puzzles. Well yes, all that is important, of course. But there’s a simpler way – and it’s a whole lot more fun. Have sex. Simple as that. Just because you’re getting older doesn’t mean you should stop doing the deed. In fact, there are so many advantages to a regular roll in the hay you’ll be upping your ante in the bedroom faster than you can say “lie back and think of England”.

Apart from providing a kingsize bed full of benefits, having frequent frolics when you’re older than 50 can actually make you sharper.

It’s true: clever people from top universities in the UK have proved it.

“Sexual relationships in later life aren’t just important for sex per se, they impact other factors – in this case cognitive function,” says Hayley Wright, lead researcher at Coventry University’s centre for research in psychology, behaviour and achievement.

The study, done in conjunction with Oxford University, involved 73 people (28 men and 45 women) aged between 50 and 83. All were quizzed about their sexual habits: 37 indicated they were having sex on a weekly basis, 26 were doing it monthly and 10 weren’t having it at all.

Mental function was tested and it was found that those having the most sex on average scored two points higher in certain tasks compared with those who were having it once a month. And the once-monthlies scored four points more than the abstainers.

The biggest impact was on speech fluency – tested by finding out how many animals starting with the letter “f ” the study subjects could name in a minute, for instance. The getting-it-alls also did better in visual tests, such as drawing copies of complicated pictures.

The production of brain chemicals such as dopamine and oxytocin is stimulated when you’re . . . well, stimulated, researchers believe. These feel-good hormones assist in the transference of signals in the brain.

Sex is good for all sorts of other things too.

“If you have a healthy sex-life in your thirties and you sustain that into your fifties and beyond, you’ll reap many benefits,” says Dr Jireh Serfontein, a Pretoriabased medical doctor who works in the field of sexual medicine. “And someone who starts having sex only in their fifties will experience the same.”

Carnal knowledge, it seems, is a wonderful thing.