More sex will not make you happier

COUPLES hoping that having more sex will improve their relationships should think again after a new study found it does not boost happiness levels.

Although countless research and self-help books insist that injecting more sex into a flailing love life can bring back the spark, psychologists found that it could make the problem worse.

In fact increasing the frequency of sex actually led to a drop in desire and enjoyment.

Carnegie Mellon University researchers asked 64 couples aged between 35 and 65 to take part in an experiment to discover if more sex improved their relationships over three months.

Half were told to keep their love lives the same as normal, while the other half were asked to double episodes of intercourse. They were then questioned about their happiness levels and how much they had enjoyed sex during the period.

The couples instructed to increase sexual frequency said over the period their happiness levels fell. The researchers found reported lower sexual desire and a decrease in sexual enjoyment.

It wasn’t that more sex led to decreased enjoyment. Instead, it seemed this was because they were asked to do it, rather than initiating it on their own.

Professor George Loewenstein, the study’s lead investigator, said: “If we ran the study again we would try to encourage subjects to initiate more sex in ways that put them in a sexy frame of mind, perhaps with hotel rooms or Egyptian cotton sheets, rather than directing them to do so.”

The research was published in the Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organisation.