Having sex more than once a week doesn't make you any happier.

Photo: flickr/Tina FranklinConventional wisdom suggests that having sex more often should lead to greater happiness--after all, as John Updike said (at least according to this article) "Sex is like money; only too much is enough." Well, these authors set out to test whether that's actually true. By studying the results of nationwide surveys and using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, they found that sex does make people happier...up to once a week, and only if they're in a relationship. More often than that, and the effect plateaus (i.e., 4x a week has the same effect on happiness as 1x/week). Take that, Updike!Sexual Frequency Predicts Greater Well-Being, But More is Not Always Better "Is it true that engaging in more frequent sex is associated with greater well-being? The media emphasizes—and research supports—the claim that the more sex you have, the happier you will feel. Across three studies (N ¼ 30,645), we demonstrate that ...