130 menshealth.com.au
QUESTION
What item of
clothing can make
youabetterlover
–andalsoimprove
your sleep?Socks
ANSWER
ONE WORD ANSWER
ONE AFTERNOON IN JUNE, a woman was
travelling home from a party in Sydney
when her shoes began to nip at her feet. So
she slipped them off. Suddenly, as she
stopped at a footpath, pain pulsed through
her body and she tumbled to the ground.
She’d been electrocuted by an exposed
wire at a nearby worksite, the current
passing into her through her wet socks.
(Thankfully, she survived.)
For most of us, the biggest shock that
socks ever bring is far milder: the faux pas
of a mismatching pair, say, or an unwanted
glimpse of the loud yellow ones worn by
the colleague who also sported a light-up
tie at the office Christmas party. If the
fashion police are irked by odd combos
and outrageous colours, however, they are
appalled by a rather ordinary habit.
“Please, guys, never ever wear your socks
to bed,” pleads fashion website LooksGud.
“Your girl would hate it completely.” A
female contributor to a separate blog
discussion concurs: “This is the one thing I
demand never happens... I’d rather a guy
wear a hat.” Warm, cotton-enclosed feetare a turn-off – or so conventional wisdom
tells us unequivocally.
But science disagrees. Researchers at
the University of Groningen in the
Netherlands found that cold feet were
an inhibitor to achieving orgasm; in a
controlled trial, couples supplied with
socks had a 30 percentage-point higher
chance of climaxing than their naked-toed
counterparts. Any kind of anxiety can be a
dampener for women, while for men
seeking physical stimulation, icy
extremities are an off-putting distraction.
Even if you’re turning in alone, keeping
your socks on can heat up your night.
According to a team of Swiss scientists,
the warmth they create helps to bring
about the “rapid onset of sleep” by dilating
the blood vessels in your feet – part of the
“thermoregulatory cascade of events”
that precedes dozing off. Their results
suggest that sleeping with your socks on
could hasten this process by as much as
15 minutes. So ignore the detractors and
hotfoot it to sleep – or something hotter.WORDS: YO ZUSHI; PHOTOGRAPHY: JOBE LAWRENSON; PANTHERELLA SOCKS FROMSOCKSFOX.COM