Staying sexually active can help you stay sharper mentally as you age. That’s the upshot of research linking sexuality to higher cognitive functioning in seniors published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Researchers from the Netherlands found older men and women who said they were satisfied with their sex lives scored better on tests of memory and other mental functions than those who felt sexuality and intimacy were unimportant.

The study involved 1,747 people, 71 years old on average, whose sexual activity, memory, mental processing speed, general cognitive function, and ability to reason and think abstractly were assessed.

The seniors were surveyed on the importance of sexuality and their current sex life, as well as the need for intimacy and touching with aging.

The researchers then compared their answers to medical charts tracking chronic diseases, depression, and medications to reach their conclusions.