Science Finds You Really Can Sleep Your Way to the Top

Study suggests good career things will come to those who make time for sex
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 7, 2017 4:33 AM CST
You Really Can Sleep Your Way to the Top
A couple exchanges a kiss next to a fountain in this 2016 file photo.   (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Sex is good for you. Scientists tell us so, and continue to find ways in which it can positively impact our lives. Now a researcher at Oregon State University is reporting that "making a more intentional effort" to have a healthy sex life is an actual "issue of human sustainability" and, as would of course follow, a "potential career advantage." Reporting in the Journal of Management, his team followed 159 married employees over a two-week period and looked at their sexual behaviors as well as mood, engagement at work, job satisfaction, and more. Sure enough, having sex reaps positive benefits for a solid 24 hours—and for men and women equally, they found—likely due to the release of dopamine and oxytocin, reports New York magazine.

Keith Leavitt, a business professor at OSU, goes so far as to say that people should "just make time for it," and notes that it's actually "a real thing" when people have a "spring in their step." If this all seems rather obvious, it did to Gizmodo, which points to studies linking sex with mood benefits all the way back to 1958. But while the study shows correlation and not causation—hey, people who elect to have sex more might be happier already, and being happier in general could be behind that higher work satisfaction—Gizmodo urges people not to overthink it. "There's a college professor in Oregon telling you to make time for sex and expect good things to happen as a result. This is good advice." (One town in Sweden is considering paying workers to take a one-hour sex break.)

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