Sleeping with women makes men dull

Study reveals that even without sex, male brain is fatigued the next morning

LONDON: Men beware — sleeping with your wife can damage your brain! The warning was issued by a team of Austrian scientists whose research suggested that when men spend the night with a partner, their sleep patterns are disturbed.

The research, carried out by a team led by Professor Gerhard Kloesch at the University of Vienna and presented to the Forum of European Neurosciences in Vienna, claimed that even women who share a bed had disturbed sleep, but their brain power remained undiminished. Men's mental agility, however, became poorer the next morning.

Couples were asked to spend 10 nights sleeping together and 10 nights sleeping apart while scientists observed their rest patterns through wrist monitors and sleep diaries. The following day, the couples were given mental ability or cognitive tests.

Whether or not the couples had sex before going off to sleep, everyone in the study had a more disturbed night when sharing a bed than when sleeping alone.

Curiously, most men were unaware that sharing a bed disrupted their sleep, while women felt they slept better alone. "Lack of sleep led to increased stress hormone levels in men and reduced their ability to perform simple cognitive tests the next day," the study stated.

Not everyone, however, agrees with the findings. "Couples who share a bed for years get used to each other so much that if they then spend a night apart they actually have a worse night than when together," said Professor Jim Horne of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, UK.

"Men would need a really bad night's sleep for their brain's performance to be impaired the next day," he added.

The study also found that sharing a bed has an impact on dreams. Women remembered more of their dreams after sleeping alone, while men recalled the most after sex.