How Cuddling After Sex Can Increase Your Sexual Desire

Having an active sex life can be important for the longevity of your relationship or marriage. But cuddling after sex - can actually be equally as important as the sex itself. It’s a low effort way of creating intimacy and satisfaction, ensuring you keep your relationship alive for the long run. 

The Benefits of Cuddling After Sex

As with all physical intimacy - sexual and otherwise - there are lots of pretty great benefits that come along with it. 

Snuggling after sex releases oxytocin, often dubbed as the “bonding hormone”. When this hormone is released, it can make us feel closer emotionally, and strengthen our connection with our partner. 

In turn, a stronger bond with our partner may also increase sexual desire - especially if we’re the kind of person who craves emotional connection to want sex. 

Another added benefit of cuddling post-sex is that it releases dopamine - a feel-good hormone. The release of both oxytocin and dopamine makes us feel happier and closer. And because of this - stress is reduced in the body. 

And with increasing amounts of notifications pinging at all hours of the day (and night), anything that can help us de-stress if worth a try, right?

But beyond the pleasurable experience of cuddling and the release of neurochemicals - it has also been shown to positively affect your relationship as a whole. 

Specifically, feeling satisfied with your post-sex ritual, can make you feel more satisfied with your sexual experience. Thus, you also feel more satisfied with your relationship, too.

And (you may have guessed it already), the cuddling part isn’t necessarily essential. What is essential is being satisfied with what you do after sex. That’s where the real benefits to relationship satisfaction as a whole, lie. 

Why Some Need Hugs After Sex to Increase Desire

Sex isn’t just a bodily experience. It’s an intimate dance that encompasses all of us - our thoughts, feelings, emotional baggage and all. Cuddling after the fact is therefore not just a lovely way to end your intimate encounter, it's a way to boost motivation for sex.

This is especially true - if you struggle with desire for sex in general or find the idea of sex to be pressuring and stressful.

In order to truly want more sex, it’s important to help your brain and body equate sex with something positive. Because if it doesn’t - you will continue to struggle with low or no sex drive.

Helping it feel sex is good for you can be done in lots of ways - and one of them is snuggling after sex.

A warm embrace can boost psychological closeness and further reinforce that sex is a good idea. Not just because of the act itself, but because of the emotional rewards that follow it during our post-sex ritual.

And for some, the act of snuggling and being close after sex may even feel more intimate than the sex itself. In turn, leading to increased sex drive due to anticipation of what will happen afterwards.

What If You Don’t Like Cuddling Afterwards?

As beneficial as snuggling after sex may be to relationship satisfaction and desire, it isn’t something you should be forcing yourself to do if you don’t enjoy it. 

Some people naturally seek physical closeness, as it’s an important marker of validation. We feel seen as heard when our partner or spouse embraces us. 

For others, that kind of affection may feel heavy or even like an invasion of our integrity or space. Especially for those of us who are neurodivergent, physical closeness may be taxing. Instead of filling us with energy, it may deplete it instead. 

Just as consent is crucial regarding sex, the same is true regarding general physical closeness, too. And letting your partner in on how you feel about cuddling after sex helps ensure you both get your needs met. 

When looking for new ways to get in the mood, it’s important to work out what you want to include in your post-sex ritual. If hugs do it for you - then go ahead. But if not, don’t fret. There are plenty of other ways of connecting after sex, including things like sharing a meal or watching a tv-series together.

Sexual Satisfaction & Relationship Satisfaction

How you feel about your relationship and sex life is affected by lots of things. These may be; previous experiences, your current emotional state, and your pleasure during sexual encounters, to name a few. 

One way to boost desire and simultaneously boost relationship satisfaction is by cuddling after sex. The combination of the intimate act of hugging and the neurochemicals released can make the difference between wanting sex again and not feeling so bothered about it. Now you know the power of cuddling, what will your post-sex ritual be?

Originally published at LeighNoren.com