⚡️MINI⚡️ Simple Steps to Strengthen Your Relationship 💋 including the 6-second kiss

ELLA:: 00:00

Welcome to this On Air with Ella mini-sode, a little bite-sized boost to your day, always quick, always thought-provoking, and always under 10 minutes. Let's go.

Luis:: 00:13

Well, I noticed a trend that a lot of times when we think about health, we tend to get very kind of secluded into this area of let's focus on what I eat. Let's focus on my fitness. Let's focus on my workouts. So it's very body centric. And yet our bodies are also something that we have a deeper relationship to that goes beyond food and nutrition. We have relationships with others and those relationships impact our health.

ELLA:: 00:38

Okay, so this is what we're doing. We're noticing, we are looking for opportunities to be accountable. What else are we doing, Luis?

Luis:: 00:46

Yeah, one of the other key things, healthy relationships have a 5 to 1 ratio. And what a 5 to 1 ratio means is for every one negative behavior or statement that is said or done. So just so everybody knows is I make tons of mistakes in my relationship. And every single couple that I've met that I consider to be the most phenomenal couple on the planet, they make mistakes, they get mad at each other, they say things that aren't so nice or don't sound so great. So with that being said, the five to one ratio is for every one negative thing that's said or done, healthy couples, successful couples, do or say five positive things. So there's a huge imbalance of positivity for the negative thing that happens. And so this, for a lot of people, may feel unnatural because that means that you're gonna be giving a lot more compliments, a lot more affection than you think necessary, but a healthy relationship is really built on positivity and affection and affirmation and acknowledgement.

ELLA:: 01:45

I love this. When you're dating somebody, it's like a 10 to 1 ratio, right? I mean, if anything, it might be a 100 to 1 ratio. It's all goodness and love and compliments. And then it's so ironic to me that the longer you're in relationship with somebody, the more narrow and narrow and narrow that ratio becomes. and reverses itself, right? So you might tell them one nice thing for every 30 critical things or constructive things that you're trying to offer them. You have seen so many couples and so many different people. What are the things we are constantly doing in our relationships that are screwing us up?

Luis:: 02:22

One of the first ones is not planning enough time to have fun. I think for busy couples it's just really easy for couples to get into this kind of space of being employees together. So we're employed to pay the bills together, we're employees together to feed the children, we're employees together to maintain the house. And so couples don't plan enough time outside of the house or outside of their normal routine to do something fun. And something new and something fun can be incredibly simple like, you know, take a walk through your neighborhood. You know, do something exciting maybe, you know, just try something new. What research has actually shown is that when couples do a new activity, something that they've never done together, something that ideally both of them haven't done together, what happens in their brain is their neurons start to fire in the exact same way in the exact same places that happened when they first fell in love. And so what we're doing is reactivating those love neurons and those love chemicals. So that's one of the first things that I can really think of that's really important for couples to think about. The second one is not taking enough responsibility, right? So the more that you can take responsibility for the results in your relationship, and you can come back to your partner and speak from that place. Hey, I'm noticing, you know, we haven't been having enough fun in our relationship, and I realize part of it is probably because I haven't been making myself available enough, you know? I'm curious, would Saturday at this time work for you?" So this responsibility piece can be quite simple. It doesn't have to be this big, long, drawn-out thing about something that's wrong about you. It can just be very simple and quick, and we can ask for a new result that we want, all within the same paragraph of sharing.

ELLA:: 04:01

The things that make our relationships work or fail miserably, they are simple, aren't they?

Luis:: 04:06

Yeah, they're always simple. Every problem that I've ever encountered with couples, I would say 99% of them actually have been incredibly simple, you know, they're simple stuff, but we can hang on to simple things and blow them up. The third thing, for me, I really think is that couples sometimes over time stop touching often enough. And women oftentimes need a lot more touch than men really think that they need. And this is actually really healthy for men to think about because research has shown that men who are in a relationship live longer than single men. Men who are married live longer than men in a relationship. Men who are married and have a child live longer. This is all statistically speaking. I think there's different reasons for why that is, but I speculate that part of the reason is that men who are married and in a relationship and with maybe one child tend to get a lot more touch and they also have a lot more purpose for their life. they have to live for someone else, which can be very beneficial for our drive as humans to live and to give and to serve. But coming back to just your relationship and no matter where you're at, touch is incredibly important. Eight hugs a day. The research by Dr. Paul J. Zak has found that eight hugs a day actually increases your longevity and meets your daily need for touch and connection with other human beings.

ELLA:: 05:26

The power of touch, this is so powerful as a parent to a child, as your child grows, to still maintain the power of touch with them and still hug them and still kiss them, even when they're ornery and grumpy teenagers, etc. In a marriage, that goes so quickly with so many people.

Luis:: 05:47

I even read a study recently, sorry to interject, but I read a study recently that was showing that couples that sleep farther apart than they used to is a strong indicator of the level of intimacy, but also can be an indicator of like a divorce or a separation coming. One of the suggestions is like, if you used to sleep close together, find a way to sleep close together again.

ELLA:: 06:07

Geez, we're going to freak people out. But there's a real point here, isn't there? And I mean, because that touch is vulnerable, like you actually have to be a little bit vulnerable to physically and literally reach out, right? So once that wall goes up or that distance is created, that is a very difficult bridge to cross. Once enough time goes by or too much resentment builds up, actually reaching out and making that physical connection is vulnerable. Do you find that to be the case?

Luis:: 06:39

Yeah, it can be a vulnerable space to come into. You know, it's interesting that a lot of the things that scare us are oftentimes the things that can be the most healthy for us. You know, like telling the truth about something, expressing to somebody that we've been hurt by something, reaching out to somebody and asking for touch, or after an argument coming back and saying, you know, things didn't work out so well, can we talk about it? All of those are vulnerable spaces, or when we have dreams and goals that are exciting, those are all vulnerable spaces to go into, and yet oftentimes those are the things that are the most beneficial to us.

ELLA:: 07:12

When you really break this down, what you're saying is you're talking about the person that you are in relationship with. You need to be able to find a space where you're comfortable bridging that gap. And for those people who don't feel like there's a big gap there, maybe they're just negligent. Like we're just we get busy, we get distracted and we act employed with one another. I love that analogy because it's so true. You're employed in the business of running your household or running your life. So you lose that sense of touch. And it's just it makes such Such a difference doesn't it just the power of holding hands or touching like i said like the back of their neck somewhere that if somebody else did it would be weird like that's what actually makes it intimate right yeah and also you know part of the vulnerability is that whenever we exchange touch with someone we're also exchanging a deeper level of emotional exchange.

Luis:: 08:04

And so when we hold somebody for an extended period of time, what usually tends to happen is our breathing changes, our body and physiological being changes. Everything in us is changing and now we're syncing up in a way that gives us a real depth of empathy and connection. And if we can't have that with our intimate partner, then we're probably missing a lot of intimacy, an ability to see into each other, an ability to connect with each other. So, if you're afraid of that vulnerability, I would encourage you to bring more of that fear out to the open and just look at it and then bring it to your partner and try exchanging some of those hugs and those kisses. Dr. John and Julie Gottman suggest a six-second kiss and Gottman jokingly calls it a kiss with opportunities.

ELLA:: 08:48

Thanks for joining me for this mini episode of On Air with Ella. Tune in for our full episodes once a week. See you next time.