How to Fall Back in Love

Remember the good old days when you and your partner were madly in love? If those days are a distant memory and you feel like you’ve lost that loving feeling, science proves you can rekindle the romance. A growing body of research reveals a number of strategies to revitalize your love life.

Dial it up

While many think of love as an on/off switch, it is more useful to think about it as a volume setting that can be dialed up, according to a recent scientific paper titled Regulation of Romantic Love Feelings. In the study, people in a long-term relationship who were asked to look at a photograph of their partner and think positive thoughts about them (i.e.“He is so funny” or “We get along so well”) were able to upregulate their feelings of love and attachment as measured by brain scans and subjective reports. Focusing on your partner’s positive qualities for a few minutes each day will reconnect you with the feelings that brought you together in the first place.

Focus on more good versus less bad

Do you strive to avoid conflict or to deepen and strengthen your relationship? Couples who focus on cultivating more positive experiences and intimacy are happier than those who focus their energy on minimizing negativity. A study tracking sexual desire in long-term partners reveals how powerful this effect can be. Participants who said they had sex to prevent their partner from losing interest or to avoid a disagreement reported less passion than those who said they had sex with their partner as an expression of love. Put simply, instead of dwelling on what’s wrong, focus your efforts on what you can do to build a stronger connection.

Aim for the little things

What can you do to reignite your partner’s passion for you? While I’m sure your partner would appreciate an expensive gift or a romantic getaway, research suggests a simple strategy that is certainly less expensive. Just be nice, or as psychologists would say, be responsive. It’s so obvious and yet so easily forgotten when there are kids to feed, bills to pay and laundry to do. Making your partner feel special and consistently showing them that you care is essential for intimacy and fuels desire. Pick up a copy of your partner’s favorite magazine at the store, say thank you when they hold the door, bring them coffee in bed, send a flirty text. When you are together, be sure to pay more attention to your partner than to your phone. The little everyday gestures of love are emotional Viagra. As the old saying goes, if you act like you did at the beginning of the relationship, there won’t be an end.

Realize that not all intimacy is created equal

Having a strong emotional connection does not mean you need to do everything together. Privacy, boundaries and a little bit of mystery go a long way. Leaving the bathroom door open and clipping your toenails in front your partner will not fan the fires of desire. Contrary to what many believe, spending all your time together may not be the best idea. While it is important to share the same values, having different interests and hobbies is healthy for any relationship. Respecting the other person’s interests and encouraging them to pursue whatever it is they enjoy doing is what psychologists refer to as “autonomy support”. In other words, if your significant other loves to go camping but it’s not for you, suggest they go on a camping trip with their buddies. If your partner is training to run the marathon and you prefer Pilates, help them find a running partner. Just be there at the finish line. Attraction grows when you see your partner in a new light and doing something they are passionate about. As Proust said:

Mystery is not about traveling to new places but about looking with new eyes.

I wish you all the best,

Dr. Samantha Boardman

Chilla Kiana

Musician, Aspiring Businesswoman, Over-Thinker

WHAT’S YOUR MOTTO?

You can do whatever you set your mind to accomplish.

WHAT’S ON YOUR NIGHTSTAND?

So my nightstand is the bane of my existence, I have an intense love-hate relationship with it! I need so many things, but my OCD-self hates seeing them. Right now I have a portable speaker so I can blast music the minute I wake up, a very old photo of my mom and I, a La Mer lip balm, my Moleskin, the book The Underground Railroad, and a glass of water.

WHAT GIVES YOU GOOSE BUMPS?

Performing, finding a really good melody for a song, acknowledging God’s blessings in my life, and seeing someone genuinely happy.

WHAT IS YOUR BAD DAY BACKUP PLAN?

A bath, a book, a walk. Sometimes I go on a run. Or I’ll just be in my room listening to Joni Mitchell. Meditation is also really helpful to me, when I can do it and when I’m disciplined about doing it, I do find it helps spike my energy! I also like to immerse myself in a couple episodes of Sherlock.

WHAT ARE YOU GRATEFUL FOR?

Absolutely everything—big and small. My mom, good health, my career, the opportunities God has given me, my country Indonesia, music, the Internet, love, friends, good education, strong powerful women who are so inspiring and debunking the, not only hilarious caricature, but also unfortunate and prevailing depiction about women that we can only be either/or that I think are one-dimensional, nice people, and the little things in life, like chocolate.

HOW DO YOU DEFINE SUCCESS?

To me, success is living a life you truly want and deserve, not just one you settle for. It’s having that peace of mind—a result in knowing you’ve done your best to become the best you are capable of becoming. Most importantly, I think success is being able to do whatever it is you’re passionate about and lifting the lives of other people in the process.

BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

My mom has taught me so much, both as a personal mentor and a professional one. She taught me to be bold in my vision; to swing for the fences. She taught me that passion isn’t enough—there has to be follow through. Hard work is something that there’s no substitute for. You can have a bold vision, but if you don’t have the perseverance, tenacity, and work ethic in the face of challenges, you’re never going to be able to execute upon that vision. She’s also taught me about passion—it’s that sort of great equalizer—that you can never truly achieve greatness if you don’t believe deeply in what it is that you’re doing. That’s probably the most consistent piece of advice she’s given me my whole life.

BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER GIVEN?

Be fully present. I recently read a Harvard study which revealed that wandering minds are directly related to unhappiness, and that the keys to happiness lie in mastering the mind, not in changing external factors.

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW THAT YOU ARE EXCITED ABOUT?

I’m currently dubbing and singing as Disney’s newest princess, Elena of Avalor! Also working on my debut album, which is incredibly exciting. I’ve also just graduated from university in International Business Management (with honors, yay!) and just very recently established my own company in digital marketing called Whizzup, so I’m trying to learn as much as I can. It’s a chaotic and interesting time in my life—the figuring things out part—but I try to distill it down and prioritize to be where I’m needed at that point in time.

HOW DO YOU PRESS PAUSE?

I take a nap, listen to audio books, sing, or eat my weight in ice cream. I love cookie dough! Cookie dough ice cream is excellent. Cookie dough is great.

WHAT DID YOUR 8-YEAR-OLD SELF LOVE DOING?

Staging a performance at home and forcing anyone available to be my audience. Or watching Disney movies.

IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE MAGIC POWER WHAT WOULD IT BE?

To not over analyze. It seems humdrum, but being a vehement perfectionist, it’s something that I struggle with. I’m very meticulous about precision and detail—it would be nice to not overthink all the time.

WHAT MAKES YOU FORGET TO EAT?

Nothing. My brain just stops functioning when I’m hungry. It’s not even about the meal sometimes, I think even more delectable than a delicious meal is the experience.

WHAT 3 THINGS WOULD YOU GRAB IN A FIRE?

I’d say my phone, but I know that’s a run-of-the-mill answer so I’ll leave that to fight against the stereotype. My mother is excluded, because it goes without saying that I would save her first. So probably my wallet, the thesis I wrote, and a book of my original songs.

WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING YOU’VE EVER DONE – YOUR GREATEST CHALLENGE?

I tend to micromanage things, so every time I let go of something that in my mind still needs to be tweaked, it’s going outside my comfort zone. I think I’m getting better at this, but it’s still so hard sometimes!

FAVORITE WORD?

Music! Because duh.

FAVORITE WORK OF ART?

I should probably name a painting, but I’m going to say Hamilton instead. I just got back from New York City and finally had the chance to watch it—I had extremely high expectations and they were all surpassed. The rarity of combining hip-hop and R&B I think has truly redefined what a musical can look and sound like. It’s genuinely the best piece of art I’ve seen in my life. I’m obsessed in every sense of the word!

FAVORITE BOOK?

I have so many, but The Road to Character by David Brooks is definitely up there. It’s thought-provoking and reminds me of what’s important. To be completely honest, it’s not hard for me to love a book (plus I always do a little research before I decide what to read) so the next one I’m reading will probably be my next favorite book!

To learn more about Chilla, follow her on:

   

Grab that Grammy: Why We Still Lust After Rock Stars

In France, a guy stood on the street on three different occasions asking women for their phone numbers. One time, he held no bag; the next, a gym bag; and finally a guitar case. Guess which time he got the most phone numbers…Holding the guitar case.

Surprising? Nah. As much as we may want to deny it, most of us recognize something of ourselves in the throng of hyperventilating tweens waiting for a glimpse of Zayn’s newest hair direction or to hear Ed Sheeren’s awkward-sincere croon, because most of us have been there. We’ve hoped to get backstage or better yet pulled up on stage; we’ve camped out in line for tickets or covered our walls in posters and magazine covers; we’ve liked a thousand IG pictures.

The musician-as-heartthrob isn’t a phenomenon reserved for 20th and 21th-Century rock stars and their groupies. The appeal of music and those who make it is ancient. Charles Darwin wrote about the role of music in human mating patterns, relating it to bird-song. Other research through the years has also explored the relationship between music and mating. For example, women are thought to be more sensitive to music during ovulation, a man’s musical ability may have something to do with his testosterone levels and potential virility, his work ethic, and even his viability for financial success, and couples who play music in the house on a regular basis have more sex.

What’s appealing about musicians is a combination of factors: music resonates with our emotional and psychological lives (remember where you were when you first hear U2’s “Joshua Tree” or Jay-Z’s “New York”?) the perceived persona of a musician (confident, emotive, sensitive artist, sometimes a ‘bad boy’), and of course fantasy (larger than life love stories played across the airwaves, love immortalized, romanticism). The empirical evidence for the French musician soliciting phone numbers may not be earth shattering, but it is a snapshot lesson in the mystery and power of music. At the very least, it helps justify my long-term obsession with Duran Duran. And also Beethoven.

I wish you all the best,

Dr. Samantha Boardman

Christene Barberich

Driven Dreamer, Co-Founder and Global Editor-in-Chief of Refinery29

Continue

The Mental Math of Motivation

Question: If you were running a 26-mile marathon and you were running out of gas or starting to feel everything (not in a good way), are you more likely to keep going if you have two miles left or ten?

Here, the difference may lie not in the physiology of your muscles and how good your sneakers are, but in the psychology of numbers. Research shows that once we perceive a goal to be within reach, the more likely we are to persist. As described in one study:

The closer people are to the goal, the more resources they invest in reaching it.

Research shows people have more motivation when proximity to a goal is framed as a smaller number. For example, it may seem obvious that telling someone 20 percent of a task is complete is better than saying 80 percent of the task is left, but it is also a better motivator to say that there is 20 percent left rather than 80 percent left. This phenomenon is known as the Law of Small Numbers. As Paul Dolan writes in Happiness by Design:

The law of small numbers makes your commitment to progress more salient.

How we monitor our progress toward completing a goal directly influences motivation. This has implications for the real world. Explicit feedback on goal progress can make a difference in education, in the workplace, in marketing, and more. As the authors suggest:

Weight-loss programs should design their goal-progress feedback system to highlight small distances. Specifically, these programs should consider customers’ levels of progress and emphasize whichever is smaller: the weight people have already lost or how much they need to still lose…

Financial services could benefit from this too. They can develop programs or financial products that encourage consumer saving by providing feedback that emphasizes small areas of goal progress—either what has been saved to date or what remains to meet the goal.

Along similar lines, telling a student they have completed 20 percent of a book is more motivating than saying they have 80 percent more to read.

The good news is you have less than 1 percent of this article left to go!

I wish you all the best,

Dr. Samantha Boardman

A Psychiatrist Weighs In: Can A Good Outfit Affect Your Mental Health?

For many women, the pursuit of looking good feels like an indulgence — and most of the time, in the bad kind of way. But we disagree. As Dr. Samantha Boardman discusses with Christene Barberich, global editor-in-chief and cofounder of Refinery29:

A piece of clothing can help you feel strong and beautiful, even on the worst day. I really think that [clothes are] a positive intervention for people.

If that’s a feel-good thought for you, it’s no accident. Dr. Boardman has built her career on focusing on the good stuff. Right here on Positive Prescription, we encourage people to consider that building on what’s already strong is just as important as fixing what’s wrong. “You might have a mental illness, you might have depression, you might have anxiety, but it doesn’t define you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be your identity,” Dr. Boardman tells Christene during the latest episode of UnStyled. Small gestures of self-care aren’t just fun,  they’re necessary. How you take care of yourself, whether it’s picking out your outfit, applying a pretty shade of red lipstick, or going to the gym — those things are integral to your mental health.

Join Christene Barberich, global editor-in-chief and cofounder of Refinery29, for the full playlist of season one of UnStyled, all on iTunes, and hear all of Dr. Boardman’s interview.

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