Opinion - A recent healthline reader survey about Valentine’s Day showed that 54% checked the box that stated: “I love it. It's a fun way to celebrate the loved ones in your life.”
Another 21% said: “It’s just another day for me.” Almost 18% said “I don’t care for it. It’s too commercial”. And 7% said the day makes them “sad and lonely”.
Not surprisingly, people in relationships seemed to like Valentine’s Day more than their single counterparts.
Decades of research show that social connection is a fundamental human need and essential for our physical and mental well-being.
The better our understanding of love, the greater our respect for the significance and potency of its role in mental and physical health.
Love carries many definitions and quotations but the one used here is: The existence of a complex, rewarding emotional state involving chemical, cognitive and goal-directed behavioural components.
Love includes basic emotions and also complex emotions, goal-directed motivations and cognition.
Social bonds and love are not “one-way streets”.
The best relationships are reciprocal. Love has been found to be associated with sexual satisfaction and may be a predictor of happiness, positive emotions and well-being in a relationship.
TO IMPRESS A WOMAN:
Wine her, dine her, call her, hug her, hold her, surprise her, compliment her, smile at her, laugh with her, cry with her, cuddle her, shop with her, give her jewellery, buy her flowers, hold her hand, write her poetry and love letters - and, finally, go to the ends of the earth and back for her.
STRATEGIES AND TIPS TO CULTIVATE LOVE:
* Schedule time and romantic settings, refocus sexual energies, feelings; make sensual assignments, have an “affair” with your spouse, alternate initiating sexual activity.
* Couples intensely in love reported participating in novel, engaging and challenging activities. However, some of the greatest moments of intimacy come from the simple joys of cooking or exercising together, exchanging intellectual ideas, learning a new skill.
* By focusing on what we appreciate and admire in our partner and being grateful for the value and gifts they bring into our lives, we cannot but think positively and feel more intense love.
* Personal happiness is associated with intensity of love, especially for women.
* When people see each other every day, they can sometimes take each other for granted; a little awareness and gratitude may go a long way.
* Relationships are built on love, trust and respect . While we have focused on love, we need to be cognisant of trust and respect as they fan the fires of eternal bonding.