So how's your sex life?
If not to your liking, then thinking differently about it will likely help improve it, and perhaps your health as well. That's according to a new study which found that enjoyable perceptions and participation regarding sex will make middle-aged adults feel better – and younger – than their actual age.
However, while adults 40-years-old and up were included in the research, the participant group of just over 1,000 skewed heavily towards those who were white, married and employed. So while these findings are interesting and potentially important, it's not certain that they also apply to single adults, and those of other races. (Future research with a wider participant pool would likely produce better insight on this topic.)
Researchers at the University of Waterloo approached this study predicting that "the more favorable older adults' attitude about aging were, the more they would engage in sexual activity and the more favorable their ratings of quality and interest in sex would be." And for the most part that's what the research revealed.
"What was clear from the data is that feeling younger had a huge impact on how people felt about the quality of their sex life and how interested they were in having sex," according to associate professor Steven Mock, from Waterloo's Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies. "For people in mid to later life, feeling young at heart actually appears to make a difference in the bedroom."
Mock and lead researcher Amy Estill utilized data from the Midlife in the United States survey, or MIDUS, for adults who provided feedback on personal behavior and attitudes about sex. The gender breakdown was 53 percent male, 47 percent female; the mean age was 53.7 years; 93 percent of the participants were white; 73 percent were married and 74 percent were employed.
The focus was on three particular areas:
- frequency of sexual activity
- quality of sex
- interest in sex
After reporting how often they participated in sex, those surveyed were asked questions on a 0-to-10 scale about quality and interest. The higher the number, the more positive the response. In the end those expressing the most satisfaction and interest, regardless of age, reflected the behavior in a younger demographic which routinely values and enjoys sex more than older adults, whose interest generally declines over time.
One important reason why an individual's view about sex is important to a person's overall health is this: The World Health Organization states that sexuality is “a central aspect of being human throughout life” and that it "contributes to adults’ quality of life by enhancing relationships and acting as an important part of health across the life span."
The findings of the study, titled "The Effects of Subjective Age and Aging Attitudes on Mid- to Late-Life Sexuality," were published this month in the Journal of Sex Research.
