Couples should consider sleeping apart for the good of their health and relationship, say experts.

Sleep specialist Dr Neil Stanley told the British Science Festival how bed sharing can cause rows over snoring and duvet-hogging and robs precious sleep.

One study found that, on average, couples suffered 50% more sleep disturbances if they shared a bed.

Dr Stanley, who sleeps separately from his wife, points out that historically we were never meant to share our beds.

He said the modern tradition of the marital bed only began with the industrial revolution, when people moving to overcrowded towns and cities found themselves short of living space.
If you've been sleeping together and you both sleep perfectly well, then don't change, but don't be afraid to do something different
Dr Neil Stanley

Before the Victorian era it was not uncommon for married couples to sleep apart. In ancient Rome, the marital bed was a place for sexual congress but not for sleeping.

Dr Stanley, who set up one of Britain's leading sleep laboratories at the University of Surrey, said the people of today should consider doing the same.

"It's about what makes you happy. If you've been sleeping together and you both sleep perfectly well, then don't change, but don't be afraid to do something different.

"We all know what it's like to have a cuddle and then say 'I'm going to sleep now' and go to the opposite side of the bed. So why not just toddle off down the landing?"

Tossing and turning

He said poor sleep was linked to depression, heart disease, strokes, lung disorders, traffic and industrial accidents, and divorce, yet sleep was largely ignored as an important aspect of health.

Dr Robert Meadows, a sociologist at the University of Surrey, said: "People actually feel that they sleep better when they are with a partner but the evidence suggests otherwise."

He carried out a study to compare how well couples slept when they shared a bed versus sleeping separately.

Based on 40 couples, he found that when couples share a bed and one of them moves in his or her sleep, there is a 50% chance that their slumbering partner will be disturbed as a result.

Despite this, couples are reluctant to sleep apart, with only 8% of those in their 40s and 50s sleeping in separate rooms, the British Science Festival heard.

From the marriage sucks file: The couple that snoozes together, loses together. scientists say sleeping together ruins your health.

Why It Might Be Healthier to Sleep Alone

By Sara Ost,

Posted September 12, 2009.



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And were not talking about that kind of sleeping together. The couple that snoozes together, loses together. Or rather, the couple that sleeps together, doesnt.

Thats the latest finding from British scientist Neil Stanley. While American science reporting tends to focus on banishing the endemic muffin top, our friends across the pond have a none-too-wee fixation with la difference. If its not a breakthrough study finding that those helpless men are distracted by breasts or are just distracted in general, its the juicy promise of death by nuptial that keeps the html dot uk flowing.

Marriage is depressing. Marriage is expensive. Marriage not only ruins your waking life, your night life and your sex life, it also ruins the part of your life youre not even consciously participating in. Oh, for heavens sake, is there no rest for the wedded weary?

The study reports that if youre shacked up and sharing a bed, you experience 50% more sleep troubles than singletons. Sleeping together is downright unhealthy. So weird Im not married for this exact reason! Strategic brilliance from Ost, yet again.

My properly chilled Scandinavian grandparents may have been onto something with their separate sleeping arrangements. As a child, I remember thinking it was sort of weird that Grandpa and Grandma had a bedroom like Lucy and Rickys since we werent living in black and white anymore, but then being glad for it because it made jumping on the bed(s) twice as fun!

Just ponder the upside of hitting the hay in different stables. Youre fast asleep when a handsome stranger steals into your bed and has his way with you (so its actually your hubs and he has a spare tire, but work with me here). Absence makes the heart grow hornier, as it were. Sleeping apart makes sleeping together an extra special thing. Also, you get the eternal thrill of doing it in someone elses room. Aside from making sex just like college all over again, theres the benefit of never again having to argue over how many pillows ought to be embellishing the duvet. Oh, and the health thing.