The relationship landscape is quite diverse with many unique characteristics that define experiences for some people. One of these peculiarities is a partner or specifically, a boyfriend who’s always sleepy around his girlfriend.
If you’re the girlfriend, understand that this behavior is not a defect in the relationship and it’s okay to get curious. However, if your boyfriend dozed off a few times in your last two or three meetings, it’s not enough to spike your curiosity or trigger agitation. It could be due to many reasons like fatigue, or stress. On the contrary, if you’ve noticed that he’s consistent with this behavior, then this article is for you. Chances are, he’s overly comfortable around you, in addition to the release of feel-good hormones when you guys go physically intimate in cuddles and touches.
Keep reading to learn more about his peculiar behavior, its possible causes, and what do do about it.
Understanding Why Your Boyfriend Gets Sleepy Around You
Here are some reasons why your boyfriend always picks the time he spends with you to nap or doze off.
Normalcy and Physiology
This might be pretty hard to comprehend and align with, but it is true. That behavior could be absolutely normal. Yes, your boyfriend always sleeping when he’s around you is normal, and this behavior comes from a place of comfort. When your boyfriend feels comfortable around you like a helpless infant in the cozy arms of his mother, it could trigger relaxation and by extension, deep sleep. Perhaps meeting you is his new anti-dote for stress and recipe for relaxation. Hence, sleep feels good and natural when you are around. Factually, sleep is a luxury no man can afford when he feels overwhelmed by challenges or not comfortable in the presence of his woman. It’s total trust and serenity in the presence of a woman that inspires sleep.
On the physiological and biological side, hugging or being very physical and touchy with someone that you love can trigger sleep, and there is a science behind it. When you hug someone you love or get touchy around the person, your brain secretes certain hormones that make you feel good and induce a calming effect on the body. These hormones include Oxytocin (The Love Hormone), Endorphin (The Pain Killer), Dopamine (The Rewarding Hormone), and Serotonin (The Mood Stabilizer), collectively known as the feel-good hormones. They help improve sleep and sad moods and dramatically reduce stress levels in partners. That’s why people intuitively hug their loved ones in times of sadness and despair, and feel a lot better afterward.
Statements like: “That hug couldn’t have come at a better time,” aren’t uncommon when recounting experiences, thanks to the feel-good or euphoric hormones. Although other processes like exercise, sweet foods, and meditation can trigger these hormones, their greatest sources are love, sex, cuddles, and companionship, especially Oxytocin and Dopamine.
Emotional Comfort and Energy Depletion
So, it could be that your boyfriend is at peace with your presence on an emotional level. This means, he loves you more than you even know and doesn’t have to feel insecure around you. He lets his guard down and throws caution to the wind because emotionally, he knows he’s at home in your arms. Hence, sleep comes naturally from such a feeling. And sometimes, he could just be feeling so laid-back, you might think he’s sleeping. Emotional comfort is often the precursor to a healthy sleep, and your boyfriend is entirely fine – no stress or challenges whatsoever.
Going forward, there is another way to look at this behavior, which is from the angle of emotional labor. Spending time with a partner can be emotionally draining and may lead to sleep. It happens when your partner is the one supplying all the energy. He keeps up the conversation, strives to humor you, keeps a happy face even when he’s sad, laughs at your dry jokes, and just does everything to make you happy. It goes further into acts geared toward making you feel aroused or impressed. Activities like foreplay, cooking, fixing things around the house like a handyman, and the list could go on and on. If he keeps going on at these, his energy levels will deplete sooner or later, and sleep will be the only escape. Hence, spending time with a partner can be mentally exhausting, or euphoric, and both may result in a drowsy feeling.
Psychological Factors
Beyond the physical causes of drowsiness, mental health or let’s go by the umbrella term – Psychology, plays a critical role in inducing sleep. Mentally, your boyfriend sees your heart as his home, his fortress, and his resting place.
He finds solace in your presence and you promote his mental health. He might be coming from a place of chaos and decides to seek serenity in the one sanctuary that offers it – your presence. Thus, he sleeps once he realizes he’s under the umbrella of peace. One of the things people do when they are not mentally stressed is sleep.
By contrast, he could be mentally exhausted from excessive brain work or psychologically stressed by a family challenge. Yet, he masks all of these and keeps up with the flow, cheerful appearance, and comfortable demeanor. Unfortunately, he can’t pretend for too long because the body has a breaking point.
Communication and Relationship Dynamics
Obviously, you are not comfortable with your partner’s constant drowsiness whenever you’re in the picture. In the end, resolving this boils down to communication.
Quite frankly, he might be reserved about letting you know that he often sleeps off because he injects all the energy into the swell time you both enjoy together. He might be reserved about every other reason we’ve covered in this article and would be happy you’re initiating the conversation.
Also Read: Dealing with a Conservative Lover
When you set the ball rolling with a conversation about his habit, he will be more comfortable to spill everything behind the veil, and you can settle them with understanding and respect for each other. Afterward, he won’t need to be under pressure to impress you with a happy face when he’s sad or invest all the energy to sustain a conversation.
There will be a mutual understanding after the conversation, and boundaries will be established. Who knows, you might both create a system of falling asleep together, which is even the best, so no party is awake and feeling abandoned. The goal of open-hearted communication and effective resolution is to ensure that whenever he sleeps, you don’t have a problem with it and vice versa.
Conclusion
Feeling sleepy around a partner is a sign of trust, love, comfort, and priceless peace. In addition, science lends credence to the fact that being comfortable around a partner, cuddling and romance can trigger the feel-good hormone called Oxytocin. This hormone which is triggered in the initial stages of a relationship, significantly improves sleep and reduces cortisol – the stress hormone. Other feel-good hormones are also released when your boyfriend is comfortable around you and contribute to sleep, such as Dopamine, Serotonin, and Endorphin. So, this behavior could be normal, hormonally induced, or linked to other psychological factors. In the end, the behavior can be resolved by communicating with your partner.
