Sex 'can ease stress for up to a week'

The prospect of speaking to a large audience can be daunting, reducing the eloquent to stammering wrecks.

But having sex before a speech is an effective way of allaying gut-wrenching nerves, and improves a person's ability to cope with acute stress for up to a week, researchers claim.

Psychologist Stuart Brody, from the University of Paisley in Scotland, compared the impact of different kinds of sexual activity on stress.

For a fortnight, 24 women and 22 men were asked to keep diaries of how often they had sex.

Later, the volunteers were given a stress test which involved public speaking and doing arithmetic sums out loud.

Those who had had penetrative sex were the least stressed, and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than it did for the others. Participants who had abstained had the highest blood pressure response to stress.

Mr Brody's team tested for psychological traits, such as neuroticism and anxiety in the volunteers, as well as work stress and partnership satisfaction.

Differences in sexual behaviour provided the best explanation for the range of stress responses.

Mr Brody told New Scientist magazine"The effects are not attributable simply to the short-term relief afforded by orgasm, but rather, endure for at least a week."

He said the "pair-bonding" hormone oxytocin might account for the calming effect.