Being in a relationship is not easy. It requires effort and devotion to keep that romantic flare and interest there. Sometimes we get lazy and take it for granted. We stop making that extra effort to please our partners and the relationship becomes hollow. It turns into what is known as companionship love, where two people are together just for the company and they become more like friends. Most people see this companionship love as a natural progression in a long term relationship, but a review of existing research suggests that this depletion of romance in a relationship can make people unhappy and dissatisfied with their relationship and themselves in general.... Read More

Sex is something we all do for fun. But could it do more for us than just making us feel good physically? Could there also be an emotional component to sex that we are not aware of? It is often said that sex with your partner will strengthen your relationship, and make you feel closer to one another. I often wondered how much truth there was to this belief. Because I don’t believe everything I’m told, I ignored it. Until @jobucks referred me to a link through twitter. From this link, I found numerous studies that suggest that sex affects us in more ways than one.... Read More

While most of us women cringe at the thought of a dripping sweaty man, new research suggests that unconsciously, a woman’s brain computes the scent of sweat and realises the significance of the emotions that it conveys right away.... Read More

You may have read a study in the news today about men being attracted to women who wear red. If you have not read or heard about it yet, a study was conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester on how colour can affect a man’s view of a woman’s attractiveness.  The men were shown photos of women in white or red coloured dresses and they found that men rated then women in red as more attractive than the women in white.  They also found that men did not rate the women in red dresses any higher in likeability, kindness or intelligence than the women in white.... Read More

We all know that communication in a relationship is important, but who would have thought that something as simple as asking your partner about their day could put you in a more positive mood.... Read More

Telling another person how we feel, we all know, helps us to feel better when we are down. But what is it about verbalising our feelings that makes us realise it’s not so bad after all?  Why is it that talking to a therapist about our life problems, helps us to overcome our emotional instability? That question can be answered by what happens in our brain when we verbalise our feelings.  A study conducted by Lieberman and Eisenberger investigated what happens when people verbalise their feelings.  They found that the simple act of verbally labelling an expression, leads to less amygdala activation in the brain, when compared to those people who did not verbally label the expressions.  For those who don’t know, the amygdala is the part of your brain that controls your feelings and emotions and is the part that is activated when you are feeling sad or upset. Therefore, by simply describing your feelings, the emotional centre of your brain no longer becomes activated and you no longer feel the emotion that is troubling you.  ... Read More