DOES IT REALLY WORK?
Thanks to largely MIA commutes, getting down before you get up is, for many, no longer out of the question. Can you score a new level of closeness from this type of daily grind?
Would you sign up for sex every morning to feel closer to your SO? This writer did
As a committed night owl, the idea of morning sex has never appealed to me. Things don’t normally heat up with my husband Jack until the evening, and I need as much time in bed in the mornings as I can get. But between having three kids and a busy job, action – or lack thereof – in the bedroom has become a bit predictable.
In a bid to reignite our once-roaring flame of desire, I set myself a challenge: I wanted us to have sex each morning for a week.
While this goal has roots in relationship strengthening, the benefits don’t stop there. Sex at any hour is very good for you, with research linking it with an improved immune system and memory, among other things. But get down to it before dawn (okay, before the end of the Today programme) and the benefits keep on coming. Engaging in pleasurable activities early taps into brain pathways that reduce levels of cortisol, setting you up for the day ahead. Plus, it’s when bodies – both male and female – are naturally primed for sex. One study, published in The Journal Of Sexual Medicine, linked men’s peaking AM testosterone levels with boosted erection strength. For women, oestrogen levels are at their highest then, too – meaning increased libido and genital sensitivity.
On Sunday night, I set my alarm for an unspontaneous 6.30am. After waking, I woke Jack with some stroking that led, pleasingly, to intercourse – although our post-sex sense of serenity was cut short when I heard the kids spilling cereal. The following morning was similarly successful; I usually need lots of foreplay, but while I thought time not being on our side (to-do lists don’t do themselves and all that) would add to my stress, it actually had the opposite effect. But our early success didn’t last.
I stayed up late on Tuesday evening preparing for a big work meeting and, when I woke at 6.30am, I felt exhausted – and about as interested in intercourse as doing a stand-up set. But I returned home to find that Jack had arranged for his mum to take the kids. We ordered takeaway, watched Netflix and had great sex, and our impromptu date night was a welcome reminder of why I set myself this challenge in the first place: to feel closer to Jack.
With hindsight, setting a daily sex target was a lofty one in the context of our busy lives. But it did help us to become more intentional and goaldriven with our sex life. On Friday, our daughter had a nightmare and spent most of the night in our bed. But, on Saturday, we did something we never do: after dropping our kids at their various sports clubs, we sacked off the household chores and went back to bed.
Now that we know we can find the time to have sex several times a week, it’s giving us something to aim for: not for the sake of meeting metrics, but for the sake of staying connected. Rather than becoming just another chore – as I feared it might – sex became something to look forward to; and it genuinely made us feel more connected during a week when our minds might otherwise have been elsewhere.