Sharing beds

Sharing a bed with someone could temporarily reduce your brain power - at least if you are a man - Austrian scientists suggest.
.

When men spend the night with a bed mate their sleep is disturbed, whether they make love or not, and this impairs their mental ability the next day.
.

The lack of sleep also increases a man's stress hormone levels.
.

According to the New Scientist study, women who share a bed fare better because they sleep more deeply.
.

Professor Gerhard Kloesch and colleagues at the University of Vienna studied eight unmarried, childless couples in their 20s.
.

Each couple was asked to spend 10 nights sleeping together and 10 apart while the scientists assessed their rest patterns with questionnaires and wrist activity monitors.
.

The next day the couples were asked to perform simple cognitive tests and had their stress hormone levels checked.
.

Although the men reported they had slept better with a partner, they fared worse in the tests, with their results suggesting they actually had more disturbed sleep.
.

Both sexes had a more disturbed night's sleep when they shared their bed, Professor Kloesch told a meeting of the Forum of European Neuroscience.

.

But women apparently managed to sleep more deeply when they did eventually drop off, since they claimed to be more refreshed than their sleep time suggested.
.

Their stress hormone levels and mental scores did not suffer to the same extent as the men.
.

But the women still reported that they had the best sleep when they were alone in bed.
.

Bed sharing also affected dream recall. Women remembered more after sleeping alone and men recalled best after sex.
.

Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert at the University of Surrey, said: It's not surprising that people are disturbed by sleeping together.
.

Historically, we have never been meant to sleep in the same bed as each other.

.

It is a bizarre thing to do.
.

Sleep is the most selfish thing you can do and it's vital for good physical and mental health.
.

Sharing the bed space with someone who is making noises and who you have to fight with for the duvet is not sensible.
.

If you are happy sleeping together that's great, but if not there is no shame in separate beds.
.

He said there was a suggestion that women are pre-programmed to cope better with broken sleep.

.

A lot of life events that women have disturb sleep - bringing up children, the menopause and even the menstrual cycle, he explained.
.

But Dr Stanley added people did get used to sharing a bed.
.

If they have shared their bed with their partner for a long time they miss them and that will disturb sleep."

NS