Why Your Boyfriend Falls Asleep After Sex
He’s snoring, you’re still wide awake. And according to Chinese medicine, it totally makes sense.
Science has lots of theories about why guys fall asleep after sex (it’s nighttime, you’re relaxed, there are hormones involved) and what to do about it (keep the lights on, stay away from missionary, have a nooner). But in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the answers are a lot simpler, and they come down to yin and yang.
Yin and yang are the two opposite forces that make up everything in the universe, and while there are lots of great, historical explanations of them, here’s the simple way I like to think of them.
Yang is an 18-year-old college freshman. He’s the mesh-shirt-wearing, lunatic frat guy who runs around a lot, sweats constantly, and has way too much energy. Yang could have sex at any second and be ready to go again the second after that, and the second after that, and the second after that. He’s the reason why Gatorade exists.
Yin is your 80-year-old grandmother in Boca. Her hobbies include sitting on the loveseat and taking naps while watching the Home Shopping Network. It’s 85 degrees out? Doesn’t matter. She’s wearing three sweaters and a housecoat with the heat cranked up because she’s still cold. She’s the mastermind behind chamomile iced tea and flat seltzer.
In other news, yin and yang can’t survive without each other. Yang is a volcano, but he needs to explode a lot and get with yin just to bring him down to a baseline functionality. Yin is an ice cave, but she needs yang’s gunpowder to strengthen her system so she doesn’t feel as cold and depleted.
And here’s how this all relates to your boyfriend conking out after sex. In TCM, sperm is the ultimate form of concentrated yang, so when your boyfriend has his big moment, he’s releasing all his yang and making himself 100% yin. On the other hand, you’re getting a major yang infusion, so now you’re all up and want to sweat to the oldies while he’s ready for a couch nap and a Hallmark movie. In TCM, it couldn’t be more normal.
But let’s say you’re anti-sleep and you want to keep him raring to go. If your guy is already yang-ish, he needs to seek some balance outside the bedroom. Some good approaches to calm his alpha side could include meditation, acupuncture, exercise, and cooling/yin foods to wind down and stabilize his system. And if he’s a little older or depleted, he may need that quick catch-up nap to restore himself before getting back to business. But either way, once the yang is gone, a guy’s gotta rest. And that’s just the facts according to TCM.
I’ll be posting about acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, and how it all fits into the real world every other Thursday. If you get a sec, recommend my posts by clicking the button below, follow me on Twitter, and check out my official site.
