How much sex we’re meant to be having a week might shock you!

There’s conflicting reports on how much sex a couple needs to have to be happy, but a new study has found the exact number of times in a week…

According to new research from the University of Toronto, the happiest couples are intimate, but surprisingly frequency isn’t always the right formula.

“Although more frequent sex is associated with greater happiness, this link was no longer significant at a frequency of more than once a week,” said lead researcher Amy Muise.

That’s right: researchers found the happiest couple had sex just once a week.

Muise and her colleagues concluded that the relationship between sex and happiness was not linear but rather, appropriately, curvilinear. Their findings were published in the the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

“This is the first study to look at a curvilinear association between sex and well-being – so yes, the first to look at the ‘limits’ or ‘levelling off’ of this association,” Muise told the Guardian.

“Other work – on non-sexual topics – has shown that sometimes seemingly positive things do not uniformly increase well-being – for example, socializing with friends”.

The far-reaching study of surveys about sexual frequency and happiness from 1989-2002 found that weekly sex was consistent regardless of gender, age or the length of the couple’s relationship.

The only result that wasn’t quite clear is how much sex single people need to feel happy.

“There is not a lot of information about who the single people were having sex with,” Muise said. “Looking at when and for whom having more frequent sex when single is beneficial is another area ripe for future research”.

Muise and her colleagues also compared the happiness brought by sex with that satisfaction of money, comparing how happy each person felt in each category. People who had sex less than once a month were less happy than those having sex once a week, the average, as were people who made $15,000-$25,000 a year versus $50,000-$75,000. The difference was greater regarding sex.

“People often think that more money and more sex equal more happiness, but this is only true up to a point,” Muise said.

So besides sex, what is the key to a good relationship? “It’s important to maintain an intimate connection with your partner without putting too much pressure on engaging in sex as frequently as possible,” Muise said.

Tell us, do you think this research is correct? Is less more? Or is it the more the better?