We’ve all been there: you want to have sex but you also feel like you probably ought to do some sudokus to improve your cognitive function instead. It’s quite the dilemma. 

But feel conflicted no more, because a new study has concluded that sex makes you smarter.

Researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Coventry asked 73 participants - 28 men and 45 women - aged between 50 and 83 about their sexual activity.

37 said they had sex weekly, 26 monthly and 10 never.

Brain function of the participants was then assessed, and the researchers found that those who had sex the most often scored on average two percentage points higher in some tasks than those who had sex monthly and four points higher than those who never had sex.

The study, published in the The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological and Social Sciences, concluded that having regular sex had the biggest impact on verbal fluency tests - for example, naming as many words or animals beginning with the letter F as possible in one minute.

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