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.
我们都有过这样的经历:你想要做爱，但是你觉得你更应该做一些数独游戏来提高你的认知能力，这个时候你觉得有些进退两难。
But feel conflicted no more, because a new study has concluded that sex makes you smarter.
但是现在，你不需要再矛盾了，因为一项最新研究成果表明，性爱会让你变的更加聪明。
Specifically in older people, regular sexual activity is linked to keeping your brain sharp.
尤其是老年人，定期的性活动有益于保持大脑敏锐。
“Sexual relationships in later life are... not just important for sex per se, [they are] impacting on other factors, in this case cognitive function,” said lead researcher Dr Hayley Wright from Coventry University’s centre for research in psychology, behaviour and achievement.
“以后生活中的性关系……不仅对性本身很重要，而且对其他的功能也有一定的影响，比如认知功能，”来自考文垂大学心理、行为和成就研究中心的首席研究员海利.赖特博士说。
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.
牛津大学和考文垂大学的研究人员调查73名参与者的性活动，其中有28名男性和45名女性，年龄在50岁到83岁之间。
37 said they had sex weekly, 26 monthly and 10 never.
37个人说他们每周都有性生活，26个人一个月一次，10个人没有性行为。
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.
然后研究人员对参与者的大脑功能进行评估，研究人员发现，那些性行为频率较高的人在某些任务上的平均得分比那些每个月进行性生活的人平均高出2个百分点，比那些从不做爱的人高出4个百分点。
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.
该研究成果发表在B区心理学和社会科学的《老年医学期刊》上，试验得出的结论是，有规律的性生活对语言流畅性测试的影响较大—例如，在一分钟内能更多地说出以字母F开头的单词或动物。
The most sexually active people also did better in visual tests too, such as copying from a complex pictorial design or drawing a clock face from memory, although this was too a lesser extent than the verbal fluency tests.
性行为活跃的人在视觉测试中也表现得更好，比如通过记忆复制复杂的图形或者画出钟面，尽管在试验中表现出的差异程度要比语言流利测试小得多。
There was no real difference when it came to the participants’ performance in memory, language and attentiveness tests though.
然而，参与者在记忆、语言和注意力测试方面的表现并没有什么真正的不同。
The study authors are not certain why the link between sexual activity and brainpower exists, but they suggest that sex is linked to the secretion of neurohormones such as dopamine or oxytocin that transmit signals in the brain. More research needs to be done though.
研究者不确定为什么性行为和脑力之间存在联系，但他们认为性与神经激素的分泌有关，如多巴胺或催产素在大脑中传递信号。不过，这还需要做更为深入的研究。
The findings emerge as new figures from Match, who are launching a dating site for the older generation called Ourtime, reveal that 24 per cent of over 50s say they’d sleep with a new partner within one month of dating, compared to just 18 per cent of 18-24 year olds.
三月份，这一发现又有了新的数据，世卫组织正在为老年人建立一个交友网站，网站调查数据表明在超过50岁的人群中，有24%的人表示他们会在约会的一个月内与新伴侣上床，而在18～24岁的孩子中，这一比例仅为18%。
“We can only speculate whether this is driven by social or physical elements - but an area we would like to research further is the biological mechanisms that may influence this,” said Dr Wright.
赖特博士说:“我们只能推测，这是否是由社会或物理因素驱动的，但我们下一步想研究的课题是研究影响这一行为的生物机制。”
“Every time we do another piece of research we are getting a little bit closer to understanding why this association exists at all, what the underlying mechanisms are, and whether there is a ‘cause and effect’ relationship between sexual activity and cognitive function in older people.
“每次我们做另一项研究的时候，我们就会更深入地了解为什么这种关联存在，潜在的机制是什么，以及在老年人的性行为和认知功能之间是否存在因果关系。”
“People don’t like to think that older people have sex - but we need to challenge this conception at a societal level and look at what impact sexual activity can have on those aged 50 and over, beyond the known effects on sexual health and general wellbeing.”
“人们不太认可老年人有性行为—但我们需要在社会层面上挑战这种观念，观察性行为对那些50岁以上的人有何影响，进而更深的挖掘性行为对性健康和整体幸福感的影响。”
