Intimacy may be the secret ingredient behind a longer and healthier life
Intimacy is not just an emotional experience. It is a biological one. Every time two people share a moment of genuine closeness, whether physical or emotional, a cascade of chemical activity unfolds inside the body that influences everything from heart rate to immune function to how long a person is likely to live. Scientists have […]
The intimacy habit hiding in plain sight that most couples slowly stop practicing
There is a habit that thriving long-term couples share that struggling ones typically do not, and it has nothing to do with date nights, communication workshops, or the romantic gestures that relationship content tends to celebrate. It is a habit that determines how intimacy either accumulates or erodes between two people across thousands of ordinary […]
The Secret Love Truth Behind Every Lasting Relationship
Love does not come with instructions for what happens after the initial rush fades. The first phase of a romantic relationship is neurologically spectacular, a cocktail of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin that makes the beloved seem extraordinary and the future seem endlessly luminous. It is also, inevitably, temporary. The brain cannot sustain that intensity indefinitely, […]
Could everyday physical touch be the missing key to greater intimacy in your relationship?
Relationships do not usually fall apart in a single dramatic event. They thin out gradually through a thousand moments of inattention, and intimacy is the first quality to reflect that erosion. Each small moment of disconnection seems inconsequential and each one adds to a cumulative distance that eventually becomes the default state of a partnership. […]
The connection truth hiding inside relationships most people envy
The connection most long-term couples quietly lose Connection is not a feature that long-term relationships either have or lack. It is something that accumulates or erodes based on what two people do with the thousands of ordinary interactions that fill the days between the memorable ones. Most couples who describe feeling distant from each other […]
Could everyday touch be the intimacy habit your relationship is missing?
Relationships do not usually fall apart in a single dramatic event. They thin out gradually through a thousand moments of inattention, and intimacy is the first quality to reflect that erosion. Each small moment of disconnection seems inconsequential and each one adds to a cumulative distance that eventually becomes the default state of a partnership. […]
The love truth that turns an ordinary relationship into a lasting one
Love does not come with instructions for what happens after the initial rush fades. The first phase of a romantic relationship is neurologically spectacular, a cocktail of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin that makes the beloved seem extraordinary and the future seem endlessly luminous. It is also, inevitably, temporary. The brain cannot sustain that intensity indefinitely, […]
All women deserve great sex and doctors are finally saying it
Sexual health has long occupied an awkward space in medicine, discussed in hushed tones if at all, treated as secondary to what gets called “real” health concerns. Nicole Cirino, M.D., is a reproductive psychiatrist, certified sex therapist, and co-director of the Menopause and Sexual Medicine Program at OHSU’s Center for Women’s Health, which is recognized […]
What oxytocin really does in Your body
Oxytocin is the hormone most people associate with the warm rush of falling in love, the deep comfort of a long embrace, or the overwhelming tenderness of a parent meeting a newborn child. Those associations are accurate as far as they go, but the full biological story of this neurochemical is considerably richer and more […]
5 powerful foreplay ideas to improve your sex life
Foreplay has a framing problem. The word itself implies something preliminary, a warm-up act before the real performance begins. But researchers and clinicians who study human sexuality are pushing back on that framing with increasing force, arguing that what happens before intercourse is not preparation for intimacy but an integral and irreplaceable dimension of it. […]