Sex File: I miss our work-from-home sex life 

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Our sex life was great when we were both working from home. I had more energy and my partner and I obviously spent more time together. Now that I'm back in the office, I'm exhausted. How can we make sure our sex life doesn't suffer now that things are going back to normal?

It's lovely to hear of a pandemic success story, as lots of couples found that their sex lives suffered during lockdown. Overexposure to one another, small spaces, fear, frustration and lousy wi-fi all took their toll on people's sexual relationships. I like hearing that yours was the opposite.

It seems that many people are now going back to work in a hybrid working model, which offers couples the best of both worlds. People get much-needed social interaction and personal space when they are in the office, and privacy and the opportunity to have sex on the days that they work from home. It's a win-win situation.

If you haven't already done this, why not try and work from home for at least one day a week. Although you probably shouldn't mention the sexual benefits when you ask your boss about a more flexible schedule, there is actually a very strong relationship between productivity and sex. Some visionary employers such as Per-Erik Muskos, a local council member for the tiny town of Overtornea in northern Sweden, recognised this years ago. In February 2017 Muskos proposed that Overtornea's 550 employees should be allowed to take a one-hour paid break from work to go home and have sex with their partners.

Although his proposal made it into the New York Times, Muskos wasn't taken seriously, yet just a month later Keith Leavitt, professor of management and organisational behaviour at Oregon State University, published the results of a study which suggested that he should have been.

Leavitt and his team recruited 159 married participants who were employed full-time and working across a wide range of industries. They kept a daily diary and every morning were asked, "How many times did you have sexual intercourse between the end of your work shift yesterday and right now?" They were also asked what kind of mood they were in and the extent to which they felt engaged, or immersed in the work they were doing that day and in the evening, and about their marital satisfaction. Needless to say, the study found a strong correlation between sex at home, productivity at work, improved mood and greater marital satisfaction.

If you worked from home successfully during Covid, hopefully it is going to be difficult for your employer to argue you need to be in the office five days a week. If, however, your jobs don't permit you to arrange a flexible schedule, your best option is regular date nights and to use the weekend mornings for leisurely sex.

It's worth saying too, that although you say you are worried about being apart now, the feeling of autonomy and independence that you get from separation could in fact give your sex life a boost. Being apart makes you look forward to being together, and you are less likely to take each other for granted, or to get complacent. Try using texting as a form of foreplay during office hours - it's a good way of making sure that you both want to race home, raring to go.

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