What is your habitual action after sex? New study concludes that it might be a good decision to cuddle for a little longer. Two new researches suggest that giving your significant other some time where you show your love by spooning and cuddling after sex is linked to feelings of being more content with your sexual and relationship life.
One of the studies had 335 people who participated and those who said they spent more time showing affection after sex were more content with their relationship and enjoyed their sexual life more. Different couples had different duration of cuddling, but the average was around fifteen minutes. The curious thing was that the length of time spent cuddling was of higher importance than the length of time of having sex or engaging in foreplay. This research found out that cuddling was more significant for people with kids than those who didn’t have any children. However it mattered in all cases. For people with children, there was a strong link suggesting that: the higher the length of time spent after-sex-cuddling, the higher the contentment in the relationship. Furthermore, the cuddling was not significant only for females as is the popular belief. It was discovered that women’s enjoyment of the relationship was very powerfully influenced by the time spent cuddling, for men the effect was NOT DIRECT: it gave them greater sexual contentment, which made them feel better about their relationships.
The other study included 101 participants who shared their sexual experiences for three weeks. They reported about their sex, the length of the activities after sex (hugging, talking), how well they liked the activities after the sex (maybe you wanted to be the bigger spoon but were the little one), and the level of content with their relationship. Days which had longer cuddling type of activities were reported to be more satisfying when it comes to sex and relationship perception. The quality of the cuddling was also important and if the after-sex activity went as one liked it to, the couples were happier. The effect of the cuddling was not just effecting the given day, as partners who reported good results were also more content with their sex and relationship when researchers did a check in four months.
Now the question is if these findings are reciprocal – you may ask yourself if happier partners are likely to spoon more, or if the sex is good, that increases the chances of cuddling after it? The truth is that, yes, the effect is reciprocal, but there is more prominent proof suggesting that more cuddling causes more contentment than to more contentment causing more cuddling. The studies did not require couples to increase or decrease the length of their after sex activities, so final conclusions whether or not cuddling for longer will actually increase satisfaction cannot be made. However, in a study before that, a group of partners were asked to kiss more often (not related to sex, just overall), and the other group of partners were not asked to do anything of the sort. The participants who were made to kiss more frequently said that they were more satisfied and felt less stressed six week after the study.
Our suggestion is to spoon for a little longer each time you have sex for the next couple of weeks, and see what you get!
