How to Inject Passion Into Your Relationship

Want more passion in your relationship? First you have to understand the science of passionate love and then you can make specific behavioural changes. In the video below, Jess breaks down the science of passion in relationships with Jeff McArthur.

The Science of Passion:

• Passion and love don’t always go hand in hand; you can love someone deeply without feeling passionate desire for them sexually.
• Experts believe there are two phases of love: passion & attachment and the former only lasts 6-18 months.
• During the passionate phase, you experience spikes in dopamine, adrenaline & serotonin.
• During the attachment phase, you remain connected via oxytocin and vasopressin
• Each phase involves a chemical process; you can’t stay in passionate love forever.
• If you want to work on attachment-based love, perform exercises to boost the attachment chemicals: daily physical affection, purposeful eye contact, expressions of gratitude, learning to speak your partner's love language.
• The big mistake most “experts” make: they help couples to work on attachment and they say “and the passion will follow”. This is not the case, as attachment and passion are different chemical processes.
• To reignite passion, you need to reactivate those passion chemicals: do scary things that take you out of your comfort zone: exercise, hike, laugh, rock climb, dance, visit to an erotic club for couples, retell the story of how you met, make a list of your happiest memories as a couple, talk about topics that make you jealous, do favours for your partner to make sure they know they’re important to you.
• There are two types of people: the ones who say “I’d be uncomfortable, so I’m not going to try it” and those who say “I’d be uncomfortable, I’m going to try it.” If you want passion, you have to pull from the latter.