We have good news: Researchers have found yet another reason why sex is good for you. Well, good your girlfriend. But still. It’s more news that sex is healthy, so yay!
Apparently, women who have lots of sex have sharper minds than those who abstain, because abstinence is boring. Just kidding. But really, it turns out that women who have sex have better memories, because sex is obviously miraculous.
Researchers at McGill University had 78 straight women between the ages of 18 and 29 complete a memory paradigm task that evaluated how well they could remember neutral faces and abstract words.
They found that women who had P-in-V sex were faster at remembering words than those who observed celibacy (or were just going through an unfortunate dry spell), though there was no difference in their ability to remember faces.
The scientists hypothesize that sex leads to improved neurogenesis in the hippocampus, which is the generation of neurons from stem cells and progenitor cells, which, in turn, means a better memory. And FYI: the hippocampus is basically the memory central of your brain.
“The chemicals involved with signaling reward to the brain—hormones and neurotransmitters—have been shown to be associated with both memory and sexual activity,” McGill University psychology professor, Jens Pruessner, told Broadly.
Well, this is simultaneously good news and bad news. It’s good news because this means the more sex you have with your girlfriend, the better her memory will be, and you should be happy for her because you love her. Aw, so sweet.
But, this is bad news because the more sex you have with your girlfriend, the more she’ll be able to remember that thing you said on a specific date at a specific time in a specific place so she can call you out on any wrongdoings. Ya feel?
Anyway, if sex is good for women’s memories, it’s probably good for men’s, too (or not…?), so go nuts. All you need to know is that sex is very, very good for you, so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.