Sharing a bed with someone could temporarily reduce your brain power - at least if you are a man - Austrian scientists suggest.
When men spend the night with a bed mate their sleep is disturbed, whether they make love or not, and this impairs their mental ability the next day.

The lack of sleep also increases a man's stress hormone levels.

According to the New Scientist study, women who share a bed fare better because they sleep more deeply.

Sleepless nights

Professor Gerhard Kloesch and colleagues at the University of Vienna studied eight unmarried, childless couples in their 20s.

Each couple was asked to spend 10 nights sleeping together and 10 apart while the scientists assessed their rest patterns with questionnaires and wrist activity monitors.

The next day the couples were asked to perform simple cognitive tests and had their stress hormone levels checked.

Although the men reported they had slept better with a partner, they fared worse in the tests, with their results suggesting they actually had more disturbed sleep.

Both sexes had a more disturbed night's sleep when they shared their bed, Professor Kloesch told a meeting of the Forum of European Neuroscience.

But women apparently managed to sleep more deeply when they did eventually drop off, since they claimed to be more refreshed than their sleep time suggested.

Their stress hormone levels and mental scores did not suffer to the same extent as the men.

But the women still reported that they had the best sleep when they were alone in bed.

Bed sharing also affected dream recall. Women remembered more after sleeping alone and men recalled best after sex.

Separate beds

Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert at the University of Surrey, said: "It's not surprising that people are disturbed by sleeping together.

"Historically, we have never been meant to sleep in the same bed as each other. It is a bizarre thing to do.

"Sleep is the most selfish thing you can do and it's vital for good physical and mental health.

"Sharing the bed space with someone who is making noises and who you have to fight with for the duvet is not sensible.

"If you are happy sleeping together that's great, but if not there is no shame in separate beds."

He said there was a suggestion that women are pre-programmed to cope better with broken sleep.

"A lot of life events that women have disturb sleep - bringing up children, the menopause and even the menstrual cycle," he explained.

But Dr Stanley added people did get used to sharing a bed.

"If they have shared their bed with their partner for a long time they miss them and that will disturb sleep."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5197440.stm

Maybe this is why I do so well in school

Hmm thats weird. I for one absolutely detest sleeping alone. I get scared at noises, cant fall asleep, wake up crying from nightmares, etc. I need to be cluthced tightly, and not just for a while, but the whole duration of the night, even while shifting positions... i want arms around me at all times and i like to be squished flat to the bed. *shrug* I think it MAY have to do with how you slept as a kid - alone in yer own bed or with parents or whatever. hmm. Interesting nonetheless.

I for one would like to see more research on this one. I thought it was kinda interesting.

What I could decipher at this late hour is interesting...but honestly, I have to go to bed!

That was subtle and clever! LOL!

I too am going to bed soon, you know, I was thinking, i've been going to bed alone so much, I should be a wildly smart and quick on the draw kinda guy.

Is it just me?

I dont sleep the greatest when I have a bedmate but thats because we are up a lot being a little busy.
Lack of sleep or being not as sharp is worth it for a great sleeping partner. lol

Each of us enjoys a superior life following a few sleepless nights of unending lovemaking. The positive effects are temporarily offset by fatigue and overworked muscles, but the long term good is priceless.

After all, a bit of clumsiness and forgetting the normal sexless routines is predictable. If you were to have romping sex nightly, then the memory lapses should cease to occur.

IMO

Are you saying you aren't wildly clever??? Oh come on...I bet you underestimate yourself!