Treating Post-Coital Depression

Mediocre sex may be the best way to prevent that sinking post-coital feeling.

sad couple bed
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There's a special desire that overcomes some people after a thoroughly satisfying roll in the hay, and unfortunately, it's not for ice cream, cigarettes or Jon Stewart.

More likely, it's for Kleenex, a dark corner, and back-to-back screenings of Beaches and the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

That's because a significant share of the population is predisposed to the post-coital blues.

Lest you think: "What's the big deal? Don't we all get a little sad after 2-for-1 happy hour-induced sex with what's-his-name in accounting?"—think again.

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The post-coital blues are bigger than mere disappointment and more painful than outright embarrassment. They're a legitimate medical condition.

And according to the New York Times, the most successful way to treat the condition is nearly as depressing as the post-coital blues themselves.

Dr. Richard Freidman writes, "I thought that if I could somehow modulate my patients’ sexual response, make it less intense, it might blunt the negative emotional state afterward."

In other words, Dr. Freidman decided that the best way to take his patients off their sexually induced emotional roller coaster rides was to make sex less fun.

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He did this by prescribing them selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (e.g. Prozac, Zoloft, etc.) — drugs that even the mood, lift the spirits and oftentimes bring on sexual dysfunction. It might seem like a severe last resort, but as it so happens, it worked. After two weeks, Freidman's patients reported that, "while sex was less intensely pleasurable, no emotional crash followed."

No doubt, they, as well as their partners, are relieved to have a little less crying in the bedroom these days. We just hope that there's still a fair amount of heat where once there raged a five-alarm fire.   

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