Sex: The Stress Buster

Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of Paisley, Scotland said that sex has a very effective and positive impact on stress.

He said that sex before a speech in public reduces stammering and nervousness. He compared the effects of different kind of sexual activity on stress.

In his study about 24 women and 22 men participated. They were asked to maintain a record on the frequency of their sexual activity.

After a fortnight the participants were asked to take a stressful activity like public oratation or performing arithmetic sums aloud.

It was found that those who had penetrative sex were the least stressed with normal blood pressure.

The participants who were asked to abstain from any kind of sexual activity were completely stressed out and had high levels of blood pressure.

The study also tested the participants psychologically, their anxiety levels, neuroticism, partnership satisfaction and work stress.

Difference in sexual activity had varied effect on the response of an individual to stress. This reduction in the stress after the sexual activity was maintained for a week.

The reason behind the calming down effect is due to the hormone oxytocin, which is released during a sexual activity.