A clinical psychologist and sleep specialist has shared when he believes couples should be having sex — and why the timing can make a bigger difference than many realise.
While lots of people assume nighttime is the most natural moment for intimacy, that common habit may not align with how the body functions. Dr. Michael Brues says many couples typically have sex between 10:30pm and 11:30pm, often right before going to sleep.
The issue, he explains, is that late evening intimacy can clash with the body’s natural hormonal rhythm. At that point in the day, the balance of hormones linked to sexual readiness may be working in the wrong direction.
During an appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Brues said: “Most people are intimate between 10:30 and 11:30 at night, that was a survey we did so it makes a lot of sense.
“Here’s what’s interesting, your hormone profile doesn’t look too good for 11:30 at night for having sex. In order to have successful sex, you want to have estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, adrenaline and cortisol all to be high and melatonin to be low.”
Melatonin, which is produced in the brain, helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle. As the evening goes on, melatonin levels rise to signal that it’s time to slow down and prepare for sleep — not to ramp up.
“What do you think your hormone profile looks like at 11.30 at night? It’s literally the opposite, melatonin is high and all those other things are low,” Brues continued.
“That’s hint number one as to when would probably be the best time to have sex.”
Instead of leaving intimacy until just before bed, he suggests couples might be better off shifting it to earlier in the day — particularly the morning.
“Number two, if you happen to be having sex with somebody who was born biologically male, what do most men wake up with? An erection.
“If that’s not mother nature telling you to use that thing then I don’t know what is, right? So when you start to look at it and do the surveys, we found that people actually had greater connection and performance in their sex when they have sex in the morning.”
That said, he doesn’t recommend jumping straight into it the moment you open your eyes. Brues joked that it’s smart to take care of basic morning hygiene first — suggesting it’s best to ‘brush your teeth and throw in a little mouthwash”’ — before calling it the “perfect time” for intimacy.
Brues also offered a separate tip for people who wake up in the early hours — between 1am and 3am — with the feeling they need the toilet. His first suggestion is to change position for about 25 seconds to see if the sensation goes away.
“Seventy percent of people sleep on their sides and they are putting pressure on their bladder,” he argued. “My guess is that most of those people, if all you did was when you woke up was lie and get on your back and wait for 25 seconds and see if you still need to pee.
“If you don’t need to pee, stay in bed and keep your heart rate down, if you need to pee, please, go pee. If you’re going to go to the bathroom, have a strategically placed nightlight along the way so you don’t have to flip on the light in the water closet, because if you do that, you’ve told your brain it’s morning and it stops producing melatonin.”