How to Sleep Your Way to More and Better Sex

Here’s a hack you weren’t expecting to up your intimacy.

It’s not taking your partner out to dinner or even reading those relationship books collecting dust on your shelf. It’s even easier.

Answer: go to sleep one hour earlier tonight and you could see a 14% chance increase in having sex the next day. And here’s the study to prove it!

The link between sex and sleep has been widely studied. Not only is it a chicken-or-the-egg scenario where more sleep equals more sex, but more sex equals better sleep.

Generally, we’re talking more about couples here who routinely cite “exhaustion” as a key reason for skipping sex. And it’s a legitimate one! As parents of two young kids, we know that exhaustion can be oppressive.

But beyond that, if you’re commonly experiencing sleep deprivation, you’re up against more than just exhaustion. In this article, we’ll share how better sleep can increase your intimacy and ways to not just better your sleep but how to optimize in case your partner has a different sleep schedule.

The Link Between Poor Sleep and Your Health, According to Science

Bad sleep is no joke. And, globally, it’s thought that nearly one-third of us are not getting the recommended hours (7-9 hours nightly for adults).

While call it a global sleep epidemic, and that’s not being overly dramatic. Researchers out of Beijing and Boston who studied over 170,000 adults found that poor sleep can reduce a man’s life expectancy by as much as 5 years. For women, it’s 2 years.

Five years! That’s a long time! Just think about everything you’ve done in the past five years.

While missing a few hours here and there might not seem like a big issue, the time adds up. And we’ve read studies saying that it can take up to 4 days to recover just from one hour of lost sleep.

While its impact on life expectancy is alarming, there are still everyday issues that you’d have to grapple with too. From a higher risk of depression and cardiovascular disease to an uphill battle with weight gain, sleep truly touches every cornerstone of health.

And, of course, your sex life

The Impact of Sleep on Sex Drive

A study done by the Journal of The North American Menopause Society says it all: poor sleep doubles the risk of sexual dysfunction in older women.

And it’s not just women who need to watch out. Men who experience insomnia or sleep apnea have higher incidences of erectile dysfunction.

For both, key sex hormones are hit too.

Poor sleep disrupts the delicate balance of hormones like testosterone and estrogen that drive sexual desire in both men and women.

For men, research out of the University of Chicago found that men who slept fewer than 5 hours a night for a week reduced their testosterone as though they were 10-15 years older!

Even before discovering that study, we found this out the hard way. In 2017, Ryan experienced burnout due to overwork and severe sleep deprivation. When he tested his testosterone at age 29 his testosterone levels were the same as a 70-year-old!

Don’t worry, he’s fully recovered now and then some. It took a few years to do it naturally but it was worth it, and he shares his full story in his article, “How to Recover from Burnout.” When he last tested at age 33, his testosterone levels were the same as a 17-year-old. That’s how much sleep and stress reduction can help.

The good news here is that, while it’s a neverending cycle of more sleep = more sex, and also more sex = better sleep, you can prioritize being on the right end of that equation.

Yes, you read that right: more sex = better sleep.

For women, estrogen levels increase after orgasm, which has been found to promote REM cycles at night. For men, orgasms increase the production of a hormone called prolactin which encourages deep-wave sleep.

Convinced now? While it’s never easy to find an extra hour in the day, sleep should be at the top of your priority list. We often prioritize it even more than our workouts.

Talk about another chicken-or-the-egg scenario where more sleep = more exercise and more exercise = better sleep. But when it comes down to it, if you didn’t get at least 7 hours of sleep the night before, we opt to sleep in over working out.

Next, we’ll share ways to get better sleep yourself and how to better match your sleep schedule with your partner to carve out more time for intimacy.

How to Improve Your Sleep (and Sex Life)

Cut off screen time, set reminders on your phone to go to bed early, stop caffeine by 3 pm, avoid alcohol, or introduce soothing pre-bedtime habits that promote sleep like taking a bath, reading a good book, or stretching and meditating.

That’s the easy part. But what happens if your partner’s sleep habits are the opposite of yours?

If you and your partner have clashing circadian rhythms and sleep schedules, there are ways to work around it. The first is to have open communication about each other’s nighttime habits. If you don’t go to bed at the same time, share what works and what doesn’t.

It might be as simple as your partner putting their pajamas in the bathroom before bed, or waiting to turn on the bathroom light until after the door is closed. Or watching TV with their headphones.

Consider, too, if there are easy products that could help with this. Like a sleep mask or sound machine, or redoing the bedroom lighting to keep it soothing and dark.

Regardless, it’s important to respect each other’s sleep habits and patterns. It might take some trial and error, but it’s worth figuring out.

Finally — and here’s a taboo topic — you might even consider sleeping separately if needed. This is a controversial topic that we won’t insert our opinion into, but 20% of couples do it. Some estimates go up to 40% of couples, depending on the age.

Surveys done on couples sleeping separately report increased intimacy — it just simply isn’t necessarily done before bedtime.

What do you think? Many therapists and couples coaches are reluctant to endorse this, citing that the lack of pillow talk and an easy opportunity together at night can reduce intimacy. But if you’re sleeping terribly together, your sex life is likely taking a hit anyway.

This is all very personal to you and your relationship, but if you need additional help navigating differing sleep schedules, consider working with a couple’s coach.

As a married couple since 2017, I’m happy to share that we do have a couple’s coach. We all need some guidance and coaching now and then — think of it like having a personal trainer at the gym but for your relationship.

We prefer using online apps with virtual therapy visits for convenience, and can’t recommend the app OurRitual more. (Here’s our experience.) We’ve had some amazing success with solving our “unsolvable” problems with them, and we believe that more people should be open to talking about their sexual health and overall wellness, including any sleep discrepancies!

Closing thoughts on Sex and Sleep

Ready to improve your sex life? Start with your sleep life.

The science is clear, and study upon study shows that there’s a strong link between good sex with good sleep. And not just that you’ll be more energized and less exhausted, but that sex drive hormones plummet with sleep deprivation.

Testosterone in particular takes a huge hit and plummets with sleep deprivation.

And don’t just consider your own sleep habits and what you can do to better your personal sleep hygiene. Think about your partner’s as well. What can you do to better align your sleep schedules, or at least minimize the impact your differing schedules have on each other?

So if there’s anything you can do starting today to improve your sex life, it’s to get more sleep. Sweet dreams!

For more resources for couples, such as our ‘proven apps for married couples’ or our 1-day self-guided non-religious marriage retreat, head over to our Relationship page.

Or, download our Proven Tools for Healthy Couples below.

Written by Alex Davis
CEO and Co-Founder at Ryan and Alex Duo Life