It's true: women who have extra active sex lives are smarter

We all know the super obvious effects of having an overactive SEX LIFE. Sex is a form of exercise, so extra sex makes us extra healthy. It's also great for general self-esteem because, let's face it, when we're banging a lot we're feeling pretty good about ourselves. But did you know that women who have lots of extra sex are also smarter? It's true! Women who have a lot of sex have more brain cells, an improved memory, and better analytical skills. And if that wasn't enough, women who engage in more sex also have extra protection from stressors and are generally more open.

So on top of feeling physically great and emotionally great, sex can help our brains to feel great too. If that wasn't a good enough reason to start banging more, we don't know what is. Now, we're not saying that increasing your sexual activity means you could raise your IQ or join Mensa (we wish!). What increased sex shows is benefits to the brain by way of extra chemical reactions and growth. They may be minor changes but when it comes to brains, even minor changes are great! (And if it means extra sex, who are we to complain?)

These findings were presented in a recent study from a university in the United Kingdom. They were specifically testing the correlation between sex drive and cognitive functions in older individuals but that's no reason not to take this advice and get a jump start on helping out your brain. Having more sex was never so beneficial!

The more sex you have, the better for brain growth. That's because having more sex can actually help you grow more neurons. Neurons are specialized cells in your brain that basically make everything work in your body. So it makes sense that you would want to have a lot of them! And as we get older and live our lives, our neurons can start to die. So we want to do everything and anything in our power to build new ones. Isn't it convenient that extra sex can do just that?

Studies have found that boosting your sexual activity can increase neuron growth in the hippocampus area of your brain. The hippocampus is in charge of emotion and long term information retention. Basically what that means is that it's the part of your brain that tells you how you are feeling and helps you keep track of what you did on your 10th birthday or where your house is. Those are pretty important things, in our humble opinion! And if extra sex can help us recall an important event or regulate our EMOTIONS better, sign us up!

It is also interesting to note that in the same study that identified that additional sex helps create more neutrons, researchers also found that the increased sex had to be maintained. Basically they tested people again after going through a "dry spell" and found that while the extra neurons still existed the increased cognitive function was no longer in effect. Meaning that you've got to keep up the extra sex in order to keep up the boost in hippocampus brain activity!

Along with helping your long term memories and emotion cognitive functions by increasing your neuron growth, extra sex can help with other cognitive functions like verbal and visual fluency. Do you ever get caught up trying to remember the name of something or are trying to copy an imagine from memory? If you have more sex, you may be able to better perform these tasks!

In a recent university study, researchers found that individuals who had regular sex were more able to recall word sets. They gave them a simple test such as "name as many words that begin with F as you can" and those who had more sex were able to name more words. They also had the same test subjects look at images and then try to copy them from memory. And, you guessed it, the people who had more sex were way more successful at recalling a visual image from memory.

And it's not just in humans either. Researchers have done similar studies on mice and also find the those who have more sex have better recognition and memory recall. Sex helps improve lives no matter if you're a human or an animal! But don't worry, these studies have been performed on thousands of humans as well, so we are very positive that sex improves human brains as well!

We're pretty certain that nearly everyone would want to improve their verbal and visual memory skills. Not only is it super practical for daily life but it could also come in handy for quiz nights or a competitive round of Pictionary. And there is nothing sexier than a woman with a great brain.

We've gone over how extra sex can literally grow neurons and improve various cognitive functions like long-term memory and visual and verbal recall. But did you know that increasing your sexual activity can also help your analytical skills as well?

Sex making you a better thinker has to do with how your brain is impacted by lots of sex versus romance. Studies find that people who are engaging in lots of sex are more focused on analytical and concrete thinking while people who are in love are thinking more contemplatively and focusing on big picture things. To put it simply, people in love are generally feeling more settled and thinking LONG TERM, holistic thoughts where as people who are focusing on multiple sexual encounters are more focused in the PRESENT and day-to-day. In this case, it is less to do with specific neuron creation in your brain and more to do with a state of mind and being. It only makes sense that how you are living your sex life will affect how you perceive and act in the rest of your life.

That's not to say that you can't be feeling both romantic things and engaging in piles of sex too. In fact, that same study found that people in committed relationships who engage in lots of sex see an increase in both analytic skills and big-picture thinking skills. No matter what kind of relationship you are in, if you are having loads of sex it's a win-win across the board!

There is a lot going on in our bodies when we are having sex. One important thing that occurs is the release of oxytocin. This is a hormone that gets released into the brain during sexual arousal. Oxytocin can also get released during hugging and kissing and often helps increase feelings of bonding and togetherness. Because of this, it's often called the "love hormone." That butterfly feeling you get? Oxytocin! How COZY and NICE it feels snuggling with someone? Oxytocin! Our brains are to than for how much we enjoy being close with another person. Yes, that even includes sex!

So how can this love hormone help you feel more open? Well, oxytocin can help you feel relaxed and wanting to be around people, otherwise known as being social! People who have a lot of sex on a regular basis find that they are not only feeling an increase in wanting to spend time with people and generally be social, but also in feeling close and wanting to open up with people as well.

There are a lot of great benefits to being more open, all which lead to a generally smarter existence. It can help you get close to people and make friends. Being more open also generally makes someone more likeable and approachable, which can be especially helpful in workplace settings. When you are more open you are also less likely to keep things inside or let them weigh on you. We're not saying that you'll start spilling secrets, but you may feel more willing to share certain things. So, ladies, start using some extra sex to ENHANCE your other relationships and social life!

Stress is always bad news so it's a relief to hear that having loads of sex can help out in that department. First we need to talk about where stress comes from. Just like our brains can produce a "love hormone," they can also produce a stress hormone! It is called corticosterone. The reasons why you get stressed and how you react to stress differ for everyone. Some people get stressed from work; some people might have stressors in their persona lives. Stress can make people want to eat a lot or it can even make you not want to eat at all. But no matter what kind of stress and how we react to it, the brain hormone that is released is the same!

So how does extra sex help to protect us from the stress hormone? Well, like we mentioned above, increasing our sexual activity can help us produce extra neutrons to increase our cognitive functions. More sex can also help to produce neurons that help to protect our brains from the creation and release of the stress hormone. Adding more sex to your life can also help produce extra hormones that also help to battle against the stress hormone.

Basically, it is very relaxing to be having sex! It may not necessarily feel like it when you and your partner are panting and going at it, but trust us, your brain is hard at working helping to protect you from stress. And, ultimately, when you are having incredible sex, who has time to be stressed?