Are you worried that your man has lost some of his passion for your
relationship do you want him to be as excited and attracted to you as he was
in the beginning well then stay right here because in this video I'm going to
explain why both men and women lose that spark and passion in their relationship
and I'm going to tell you the steps to take to turn things around and have him
as excited about you as he was before don't go anywhere because we're starting
right now
hi everyone I'm Dr. Antonio Borrello and I'm a psychologist and a relationship
coach. this channel is all about helping you build great relationships so you can
grow happy with the people you love so if you're interested in making your love
life the best part of your life start now by clicking the subscribe button and
hit the bell notification so you aren't missing anything okay on to keeping that
passion alive in your relationship so here's a scenario you start dating
someone and things are going very well you're seeing one another frequently and
you have amazing chemistry together you're going on romantic dates and he's
always contacting you and texting you and calling you he tells you how much he
misses you and that he can't wait to see you and when you're together things
couldn't be better you are both very attracted to one another and you just
can't seem to get enough yes you are falling in love and the feeling is
magical it's hypnotizing and euphoric and enchanting with a sense of deja vu
an intense attraction psychologists call this passionate love a state of intense
longing and desire and attraction and if you've ever fallen in love you know the
feelings are simply incredible it's like the best feeling in the world and you
never want it to end and in fairytales passionate love never ends it lasts
forever but in real life these intense feelings of happiness and attraction and
longing have an expiration date yeah in time the love either morphs into
companion at love or you start to grow apart so the relationship either becomes
something deeper and more meaningful or it fizzles out and eventually a
separation happens so why doesn't the passionate love last why does it have to
change see when you're passionately in love with someone and you're
experiencing these amazing feelings your brain is being flooded by a combination
of the powerful neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine and the
novelty and excitement of this new love causes your brain to release these
neurotransmitters and you have these intense feelings of attraction and
desire but new love is also prone to what psychologists call hedonic
adaptation Adamic adapt ation the innate tendency
for people to become habituated or accustomed to both positive and negative
life changes after some time the idea is that no matter how good something makes
us feel most of the time we drift back to where we started for example there
are famous studies of lottery winners that showed that despite their initial
euphoria and excitement lottery winners were no happier than non winners
18 months later so despite the fact that they had won a life-changing amount of
money after two years they were no happier than they were before winning
they've become accustomed to their new normal the same tendency to return to
baseline has been shown to occur after falling in love and even after marriage
we become habituated and no longer experienced the incredible excitement
and attraction that we felt in the beginning but why does this happen well
there are several evolutionary physiological and practical reasons why
passionate love is unlikely to endure for very long think about it if we
obsessed endlessly about our partners and spent all of our time just being
glued to them we would not be very productive at work or very attentive to
our children or our friends or our health that's why after some time in the
relationship we come habituated and the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine
start to decrease but it's not all bad if you're with the right person and if
things continue going well passionate love morphs into companionate love and
the highs associated with dopamine and norepinephrine are replaced by the
hormones oxytocin and vasopressin which create the desire to bond and affiliate
with and nurture your partner and this is where long-term attachment and
companionate love come in now don't get me wrong the deep love and friendship
and attachment that comes with companionate love is a beautiful thing
but imagine if you could have that and still keep the sparks and excitement of
passionate love yeah that would make for an exciting and amazing love life the
good news there are things that you can do to kind of trick your brain into
continuing to flood itself with both dopamine and norepinephrine
Efrain and keep that passionate love going forever so without further ado
here are the four keys to making it happen number one keep the dopamine
flowing as I mentioned earlier when you're falling in love your brain is
being flooded with dopamine whenever you're with your lover and even when
you're thinking about your lover but eventually we become accustomed to our
relationship and the novelty starts to wear away then being with your lover no
longer provokes the flood of dopamine that it once did and consequently you no
longer experience those intense feelings of excitement that you once felt the
good news is that you can engage in activities with your lover that will
cause your brain to release dopamine and as a result you'll continue to enjoy
those amazing feelings for years to come so how do you do it well couples can
keep the dopamine flowing in a long-term relationship by doing novel and
challenging and exciting things together because engaging in challenging and
novel activities together affects the brain in much the same way that drugs do
that is they trigger your brain to release the neurotransmitter dopamine
and when that happens you associate those great feelings with your lover now
what do I mean by novel and exciting activities well you're going to need to
take a break from your usual weekly activities and try out a new hobby
together preferably it's something that is
challenging or requires you to learn new skills or to push yourself for example
taking dance lessons together or taking yoga classes together or experimenting
with learning to cook new dishes together again we want to be doing
something challenging and novel together so take up biking or hiking through an
unexplored area near where you live or take a weekend trip to somewhere that
you've never been remember these three words novel and challenging and exciting
activities all of these new adventures will cause a surge in dopamine that will
keep your romance alive number two keep the adrenaline flowing when you're
falling in love your heart beats faster you have less hunger and less need for
sleep when you're with your lover you may even get sweaty palms and all this
is caused by your body release of adrenaline or norepinephrine
but as we talked about earlier when you get accustomed to your lover the release
of this neurotransmitter is significantly reduced and you no longer
get the increased heart rate in sweaty palms what do you think happens when you
engage in arousing activities with your partner the arousal that's created
through an adrenaline producing activity can get transferred to your partner and
your relationship and as a result your level of attraction towards your partner
increases in other words when you trigger your fight-or-flight response by
engaging in thrilling activities together your adrenaline increases your
heart rate increases your palms get sweaty and all those feelings cause what
is known as a miss attribution of attraction the adrenaline high you
experience gets associated with your lover and your feelings of attraction
and excitement about your partner increase as well and this is a
phenomenon that has been widely studied just do a Google search for arousal and
attraction or misattribution of attraction and you'll find so many
studies that support what I'm saying so how can you apply this in your
relationship well engage in adrenaline provoking experiences with your partner
do exciting and novel things together go to an amusement park and ride a few
roller coasters together take up hiking or wall climbing or watch scary movies
together all these things will provoke your body to release adrenaline so it's
almost like fooling your brain that the arousal produced by this activity is
really due to your relationship and this helps to perk up the passion and when
that happens you will be more attracted to your partner because of it number
three keep the oxytocin flowing as I explained earlier passionate love is
prone to hedonic adaptation after a couple has been together for some time
but if things are going well in your relationship passionate love is replaced
with a more companionate type of deeply attached love so the dopamine and
adrenaline rush is replaced by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin which
create the desire to bond and affiliate with and nurture your partner and
oxytocin is a really power a hormone that is released during orgasm
and it's the reason why sex is thought to bring couples closer together and be
the glue that binds a relationship and because sex is so frequent in the
beginning of your relationship the oxytocin is flowing and keeping the
attachment and bonding strong but what happens when a couple has less and less
sex well there are less opportunities to get that oxytocin bond so what are some
things that you can do to keep your oxytocin flowing the best way to get
more oxytocin in your life is with physical touch
non-sexual cuddling and hugging and making eye contact and even shaking
hands gets oxytocin flowing so connect with your partner hug and kiss every
morning and every night and make sure that they're good hugs because according
to the Happiness Project you should hold a hug for at least six seconds to get
the happy chemicals oxytocin and serotonin flowing another thing sexual
activity can increase oxytocin levels and activate the brain's reward circuit
making couples desire each other more another thing that works very well take
a warm bath with your partner because temperature warmth is conducive to
oxytocin release number four practice gratitude meditation and appreciation
for your partner when we first fall in love with someone we tend to worship the
ground that they walk on and see them as the most attractive and smartest and
most accomplished person in the room and while we might eventually take our
partner off of this pedestal after months and years of being together
maintaining a sense of love blindness is actually critical to long-lasting
passionate love in fact according to several studies on compatibility the
only trait in a relationship that predicted long-term romantic love is
one's ability to idealize and maintain positive illusions about their partner
in other words couples who are able to see one another as good-looking and
intelligent and funny and caring or generally as a catch are able to remain
happy with each other on nearly all measures over time now I know that might
seem hokey I mean of course if you're always able to feel
that your partner is good-looking and funny and caring you're more likely to
have positive feelings about them yes that makes sense but it also works in
the other direction when people are able to deliberately focus on appreciating
their partner and practice gratitude meditation they feel closer and more in
love as a result so take some time and do a google search on gratitude
meditation you will find so many website that offer you guided meditations that
are very helpful in practicing this and maintaining a sense of love blindness
will ensure that you stay romantically in love for years to come don't ignore
this one because it really works so I'd really love to know your thoughts on how
you've been able to keep the spark alive in your relationship have I missed any
great strategies that have been effective in your life please leave a
comment and let's start a discussion also if you're interested in how
meditation can help you with your love life click here to watch this video or
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