New research published in Sexual medicine journal found that engaging in healthy behaviors was associated with increased sexual satisfaction in working-age men and women over a nine-year period. This study conducted in Finland suggests that maintaining a healthy lifestyle not only benefits your overall health, but may also improve the quality of your sex life.
Sexual satisfaction is an important aspect of our well-being, affecting self-esteem, relationships, and even fertility. Despite its importance, long-term strategies to improve sexual satisfaction are not well understood. Previous research has provided conflicting views on how personal habits and characteristics correlate with sexual fulfillment.
Although sexual dysfunction is associated with lifestyle-related diseases, there is a gap in research regarding the long-term effects of health behaviors on sexual satisfaction. This study aims to fill that gap, investigating the long-term relationship between healthy living and sexual satisfaction.
“This is a continuation of my previous research investigating how a healthy lifestyle affects well-being,” said study author Söde Stenlund, a physician and postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia. explained. “My main motivation is to discover ways to motivate and support individuals to adopt healthy behaviors. Like happiness, sexual satisfaction is also a desirable goal for individuals. Therefore, sexual satisfaction Improved health and well-being may be a better motivator for healthy behaviors than preventing future health problems.”
“Furthermore, positive sexual health has received less attention in the public health field, perhaps because it is considered taboo to some extent and is primarily brought to attention through problematic and risky behaviors. , I believe that a positive sex life and being satisfied with it is an important element of a person’s well-being. Therefore, its positive as opposed to focusing only on sexual health issues. That aspect is worth investigating.”
For the new study, researchers analyzed data from a longitudinal study known as the Health and Social Support (HeSSup) study. The study was first launched in 1998 among Finland’s working-age population, with follow-up surveys conducted in 2003 and 2012, specifically focusing on the intersection of health behaviors and sexual satisfaction.
Participants in this particular study consisted of 10,671 people who responded to the 2003 and 2012 surveys. Participants completed an assessment of her four main health behaviors: exercise, diet, alcohol consumption, and smoking. Each participant’s adherence to these healthy behaviors was scored to create a Health Behavior Total Score (HBSS) ranging from 0 to 4.
To measure sex life satisfaction, this study employed a 7-point Likert scale and asked participants to rate their satisfaction in both the 2003 and 2012 surveys. In addition to these primary measures, researchers considered several potential confounding factors, including participants’ age, gender, education level, living situation, chronic health conditions, and personal importance to their sex lives. Factors and covariates were also considered.
This study revealed some unexpected findings regarding sexual satisfaction. In particular, Stenlund was surprised to find that sexual satisfaction decreased in all subgroups except those who were not initially in a marital relationship. However, these people also reported lower overall satisfaction at follow-up compared to people in married relationships.
“It was also a little surprising that the older group showed a smaller decline in satisfaction with their sex life than the younger group,” she says. “However, this may be explained by the fact that life demands increase more rapidly during midlife compared to later life changes.”
Importantly, the researchers found that people who engaged in healthier behaviors reported moderately higher satisfaction with their sex lives. Specifically, those who consistently practiced all four health behaviors had, on average, a 0.2 point higher sexual satisfaction score than those who did not. This suggests that adhering to these four health behaviors acts as a buffer against the general tendency for sexual satisfaction to decline over time.
“The finding that good health behaviors can support sexual satisfaction and increase feelings of well-being in the long term is particularly important when the prospect of changing or maintaining such behaviors seems unappealing. “It may increase motivation to engage in and maintain good health behaviors,” Stenlund said. Cypost.
“While many of us know what behaviors are beneficial to our health, unhealthy behaviors remain prevalent.” We focus on some of the outcomes of healthy behaviors that may lead to
Examining the role of individual health behaviors in influencing sexual satisfaction, we found that alcohol consumption has a direct and significant impact on sexual satisfaction. This suggests that moderation in alcohol consumption may be particularly influential. However, it is important to note that this finding does not diminish the value of other health behaviors.
As with all research, this study has some limitations. The findings are based on self-reported data, which may introduce bias. Although the findings are broadly applicable to the Finnish working-age population, cultural differences may limit generalizability to other settings.
“Although the results are not as strong, they are still important in explaining population trends,” Stenlund explained. “Also, while this is a population-based sample and is assessed to be well representative of the general population, disadvantaged groups are poorly represented.”
“In the long term, we hope that our research strengthens the idea that happiness and sexual satisfaction have intrinsic value and importance through their downstream health benefits,” the researchers said. added. “Thus, they should be given more consideration in public health interventions and messaging, so that activities that ‘feel good’ are not a waste of time and are more important than other activities we engage in.” It is far from being a lesser thing, it is in fact an important part of our well-being and therefore important to the public health of our society.”
The study, “A healthy lifestyle can support future sexual satisfaction: Results from a nine-year longitudinal study,” was written by Säde Stenlund, Lauri Sillanmäki, Heli Koivumaa-Honkanen, Päivi Rautava, Hanna Lagström and Sakari Suominen. I did.
