Relationship Health Part 2: How to Deepen Connection

In this three-part series, we explore some powerful steps you can take to up your relationship game!

Last issue, we explored ways to increase your relationship health and emphasized that relationship health is a key factor in overall physical health and well-being—just as much as exercise and nutrition! In Part 2, we’re going to focus on connection as the key ingredient to a highly fulfilling relationship. We often think of communication is the key to a healthy relationship, but modern neuroscience begs to differ. Connection in relationships is largely determined by lower-level circuits in the brain and nervous system, not the higher areas that engage in complex thought and reasoning. Here are some powerful tips to help you deepen your connection—and therefore the overall health—of your most important relationships!

1. Connection thrives on a sense of safety.

In fact, many relationship scientists theorize that humans largely get into relationships in order to feel more safe and secure in the world, and not so alone. Safety and security are measured by simple parts of the brain and nervous system. Those parts don’t understand philosophy, or speak English (or any other modern language). To speak “connection” to the nervous system, scoot in a little closer to your partner when you talk; use touch, like a hand on his or her arm or shoulder; or hold hands when you talk. Make a little more sustained eye contact, and speak with your tone of voice more than your words. Put it all together (and avoid those delays where your partner asks you a question and you don’t look up from your email for three seconds), and you’re speaking connection to the nervous system!

2. Did you know the process of how you talk is more important to relationship health than what you’re talking about?

A powerful way to work out your relationship health muscles is to focus on the process of your interactions more than the content. Focusing on the process simply means paying attention to how it feels to interact, moment by moment. Many of us put the focus on what we want to say or debate, but words and concepts can easily stress the nervous system. When you want to feel connected, slow down, check in with one another on how it’s feeling to talk, and switch up how you’re interacting if needed. Propose going on a walk to change the scenery (and your state), or rubbing each other’s feet while you talk. Once the process of interacting feels great, the content will make much more sense!

3. Don’t underestimate the power of emotions to connect!

Many of us dismiss emotions as irrational artifacts from the right hemisphere of the brain, yet they are supreme in their connecting ability! Both positive and negative emotions can help you deepen your bond, but only if you respect them, validate them, and play along. Positive emotions seek amplification, the process of having others join us in those uplifting emotions so we can celebrate feeling great together. “Negative” emotions, like anger and sadness, need to be expressed and shared in order for us to feel like others “get” us, even if they come out a little exaggerated. They seek validation and empathy. Use vulnerability to express both positive and negative emotions by owning your experience. Be careful not to project all your feelings on others or blame others too much for how you feel. A masterful move is to use a positive invitation to ask your partner for support. Something like, “Hi, sweetheart, you’re so good at making me feel better when I’m down. Would you spend some time talking with me, holding me? It would mean a lot.” Then, even our frustration has a healthy process in which to be explored! afm

Stay tuned for Part 3: Practicing Awesome Relationship, in the next issue!

John Howard and Peter Craig are therapists at Austin Professional Counseling. They use the latest science to help their clients win at relationships and at life. John is the Founder of Ready Set Love® , a 12-week couples training program you can take online. Peter is a sponsored triathlete on Juiceland’s Dream Team and helps individuals and couples with authenticity, connection, and healthy eating.

http://www.austinfitmagazine.com/May-2018/Relationship-Health-Part-2-How-to-Deepen-Connection/

Peter Craig is a Licensed Professional Counselor Intern (LPC Intern) and has a Masters in Counseling (MA) from St. Edwards University. He works with John Howard of Austin Professional Counseling. 

Supervised by Sunny Lansdale, Ph.D., LPC-S
Treaty Oak Psychotherapy
5524 Bee Cave Rd.
Suite A-2
Austin, TX 78746
Tel: 512-329-0332

Relationship Health

Austin Fit Magazine just published an article that John and I wrote for their April edition! A three part series even! :) Really honored and excited to be a part of this mission to mainstream mental health. 

Please enjoy Part 1 on relationship wellness.

[In this three-part series, we will explore how to take relationships to the next level. part one describes some practical tips on improving the interactions with our partners.]

We all know diet and exercise matter to living a healthy life, but what about the health of our relationships? Multiple studies show that the quality of our relationships is a very significant determinant of our overall wellness, our immune system function, our psychological resilience, and even our lifespan! In fact, more than one prominent study found that our relationship satisfaction may impact our health even more than diet, exercise, smoking, or alcoholism—and that includes real physical health markers like waist circumference and diastolic blood pressure! Do we have your attention?! 

Assuming we all agree that relationship health is one of the keys to living a healthy, happy, and long life, what do we do about it? The answer to that for many of us is…nothing. It’s not just us—we’re living in the midst of a massive social failure in relationship education. None of us get a class on relationship health, so we’re basically flying blind, keeping our fingers crossed, and hoping for the best! Luckily, there are some practical things you can do to increase your relationship health:  

1. Think of relationship health as part of your overall wellness. Many of us focus on diet and exercise as keys to health. We need to invest just as much—if not more—in the health of our relationships. If you go the gym three times a week, take your relationship to the “gym” at least once a week. Set aside regular time to talk and bond with your partner. Don’t neglect it! Our nervous systems tend to get stressed the less connected we feel with our loved ones, and stress is unhealthy! In fact, stress not only degrades the productivity of our workouts and prolongs recovery time, it also wreaks havoc on relationships themselves. One powerful tip is to closely watch your stress and anxiety levels when you’re interacting with your partner and ask for help or support the moment you notice a spike. It brings you together and helps you focus on feeling relaxed with each other!

2. Quality over Quantity: Use the time you have together with your partner wisely. Make more eye contact. At the end of the day, we’re just fancy mammals. Our nervous systems calculate connection and safety in fairly predictable ways, including using eye contact to gauge many markers of connection. It needs a little more time engaged in that activity than we often give it.

3. “Welcome Home”: Dr. Stan Tatkin of UCLA Medical School developed this neuroscience-based exercise that uses the body’s subconscious connection circuits to help prevent arguments and help you feel connected. Here’s how you do it: When you’ve been apart for a while (like after work), greet each other with a hug and no words. Let your nervous systems connect, belly to belly, for 10-15 seconds or more, until you relax into one another. Believe it or not, this helps the fight or flight neurons in your gut sync up with one another—a powerful marker of connection. 

Hope you enjoyed these tips! Stay tuned for part two in the next issue, which explores how to deepen connection. 

John Howard and Peter Craig are therapists at Austin Professional Counseling. They use the latest science to help their clients win at relationships and at life. John is the Founder of Ready Set Love®, a 12-week couples training program you can take online. Peter is a sponsored triathlete on Juiceland’s Dream Team and helps individuals and couples with authenticity, connection, and healthy eating.

How to Feel Closer to Your Partner in 8 Steps, Based on Neuroscience

It seems as though we are witnessing a crisis of dis-connection. We have more relationships in this global digital age, but are they more meaningful? We may have many friends on Facebook, but perhaps barely feel like we can call anyone on a daily basis to share our struggle. This has led us to put even more pressure on our partner to satisfy all of our needs, possibly straining this most valuable relationship. Here are eight steps you can apply now to feel closer to your partner than ever and make it last.

1. “Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.” – Bessel Van der Kolk, Pioneering Psychiatrist¹

Being able to feel safe with your partner is so important, yet we don’t hear people talk about it much. It’s usually “communication is the key,” but if you don’t feel safe, you probably won’t feel connected; consequently, you likely won’t be able to communicate as effectively. Connection always trumps communication. The good news? Skills of connection can be learned and practiced! Remember: safety fosters connection.

2. Feelings of safety and trust come from a basic sense that you have your partner’s back and they have yours.

Do you feel like you’re the go-to person to help soothe your partner, lift them up, laugh, and work things out together? Share your stories of the day? If you don’t think that’s the case, perhaps you tend to withhold love or do subtle things to sabotage genuine connection. Did you know there are things rooted in neuroscience you can do with your partner to make them feel safe?

Look your partner in the eye and speak from your heart. Say something about how much your partner means to you, or how much you value them. This may seem rote or forced, but practicing it earnestly can result in profound changes for both of you. Our neuronal and psychological security systems look for direct, obvious signs of commitment, loyalty and support. We’re often too in our heads to fully convey the message to the nervous system, unless we follow the next step.

3. Be in close proximity (ideally stomach-to-stomach or eye-to-eye), use touch, speak in a gentler tone of voice, and gaze into each other’s eyes for as long as possible.

All these things foster connection, which increases your ability to communicate and decreases the likelihood of wires getting crossed. Did you know that you have more neurons in your gut than your spinal cord? Being gut-to-gut with your partner communicates on a physiological level that they are there for you and you are there for them. Additionally, this intimate connection encourages you to be fully present with each other. So now that you’re hugging your partner and relaxing your whole body into their embrace, what’s next?

4. Take responsibility to do your best to make your partner feel better.

In this age of hyper-individualism where we’re competing against everyone, can you take responsibility to take care of your partner? To always have their back? Acknowledging our interdependence requires maturity. We are born into the world completely dependent and may die dependent, but relying on others has been seen as weak in this culture of toxic masculinity.

To embrace our vulnerability, I invite everyone out there to be open to exploring and expressing emotions with your partner. Often, we get stuck inside our own heads and lose touch with our bodies and emotions, making it harder to connect in a more meaningful way. Brene Brown’s work shows that when we take risks to share ourselves vulnerably, we increase our likelihood of getting the connection we long for, even though we may not always get the response we want.3

5. Accept your partner’s ‘bids for affection’ as much as possible and offer them ‘bids of affection’ in return.

If you were to tell your partner about a song you love on the radio, and they just continued scrolling on their phone, would you be upset? You could call their lack of response ‘turning away from the bid for affection.’ If they said, “that song sucks,” well yikes, that would certainly be turning against your bid. Research on couples show that you ideally turn towards your partner 5 times for every time that you turn away or against.4That way your ‘supportive love bank’ stays positive even when you have conflicts, which are inevitable. Each bid gives your partner the opportunity to respond in a way that says I’m listening, I care, and I’m interested in understanding you. Each bid you give offers an opportunity for your partner to respond similarly. Look for these bids and respond with interest whenever you can.

6. The most important thing that we have is our attention. Give your partner the presence that they deserve.

With all the complexities of modern living and electronic screens, can you be present with someone for more than 30 seconds? Can you care enough AND have the resources to respond in a spontaneous way to what’s in front of you? The more attention you access, the more you will be able to know when to move closer and when to give them space. When to ask them for something, when to not. Present attention gives us more information about what’s happening in real time. Otherwise, as animals, our brains automate who we think our partners are (and everything else).

Our brains automate our reality because it takes so much more energy to use our higher centers of reasoning (prefrontal cortex), so we make assumptions about it. We guess, and often we miss. Being present–being able to notice nonverbal and verbal cues moment by moment–opens the doors to greater connection. This authenticity opens us more fully to the good in our relationship as well as the inevitable challenges.

7. It’s important to make up after a fight as soon as possible. The longer unresolved issues go, the more a lack of safety gets imprinted into long term memory.5

That being said, if you’re in a conflict and one of you becomes so overwhelmed that you can’t continue communicating reasonably, neuroscience research shows that it’s important to take a minimum of 20 minutes time to let the nervous system cool down. Oftentimes, one partner will want space – which the other partner may resent and perceive as abandonment – but with greater understanding of a time out practice, you will be able to navigate those dynamics more effectively to both not take the need for space personally AND repair the disconnection quickly. Now that we’re repairing disconnections, deepening our presence and attention to one another, and making bids for affection (and kindly receiving them!), it’s time for the last step.

8. Get clear on shared values, goals, dreams, and lifestyle preferences together.

Not only are shared values one of the 6 principles of sexual health (the others being consent, non-exploitation, prevention of unintended pregnancy/STIs, honesty, and mutual pleasure6), they are essential to a long-term relationship. Why? Every day you need to reaffirm your connection (even through the seemingly mundane); if you don’t feel like you’re sharing the same direction, it’s easy to drift apart and silently let resentment and anger cultivate.

Take the time to be intentional about what you want to bring into your life – more specifically, what your partner can do to soothe, support, and challenge you in ways that help you grow to be the amazing person that your partner already knows you are! This can be as simple as a 10-minute conversation about the future every few months or could include writing down dreams and goals together through creative collaboration. This also includes having the difficult conversations about money, kids, sex, etc. (but now from a place of deeper connection, right? *Gazing into eyes*).

Conclusion

In the end, we all know relationships take effort. People can be annoying. Life can be better when we pair up, and even if it’s just a little bit better, isn’t that worth it? Consider pro-actively working on your relationship by being more deliberate about how you spend time together. Put a nice dinner date or outdoor adventure on the calendar.

Seeing a therapist trained in the latest neuroscience research can help you practice building a deeper connection with your loved ones (some techniques are mentioned in this article), and help you to overcome old patterns that no longer serve you. It takes courage, practice, and coaching to make positive changes and momentum towards a more fulfilling life.

Schedule a session with Peter here.

https://www.austinprofessionalcounseling.com/peter-craig-feel-closer-to-partner-neuroscience/

4 Eating Psychology Tips to Improve your Well-being

I'm humbled and proud to share that Launch Wellness Austin asked me to give a talk on eating psychology and also write a blog in July of this year. Thank you! ...I graduated from an 8-month online training program and weekend conference in Boulder, CO to become a certified eating psychology coach in June of 2015 to complement my counseling practice. Please enjoy the blog!

Best,
Peter

Transform Your Relationship with Food With These 4 Easy Eating Psychology Tips

by Peter Craig

After reading the title, you may be wondering, what is eating psychology? The term was created by visionary nutritionist Marc David, combining nutrition with the psyche of the eater. We are all eaters, and we are all emotional beings. Let's honor that our relationship with our bodies and food is not just a function of mind-power, but one of emotional cycles. Can you hear the overplayed mantra in our culture “Eat Less! Exercise more!” over and over? It's time to gain insight into our eating habits and transform our relationship to food by acknowledging our emotions.

The current paradigm of nutrition doesn’t seem to be working. It is estimated that over 95% people who go on a diet gain that weight back in 1 - 5 years or less.* We think that we can act like computers: less calories consumed + more energy expended = weight loss. Hooray! However, what about the mental struggle of dieting? How about the challenge of sticking to our diet even though our body says it’s hungry? What about stress? 

It is estimated that emotional stress can reduce digestive function and absorption of nutrients by up to 75%!* 

Catch that? Eating with less stress may be more important than eating the elusive “perfect meal.”  This concept leads us to 

Tip #1: Activate the ‘Relaxation Response’ as much as possible before meals. 

I invite you to take a few deep breaths before you sit down to eat your next meal. Offer gratitude for your meal and those who helped create it. Allow yourself to come into the present moment and slow down. These actions will reduce over-activity in your nervous system and prime your digestion.

Now that we’re enjoying our relaxation response… Deep breath…  Let’s learn 

Tip #2: Slow down your eating speed.

 I can hear it now, “I’m too busy at work to slow down eating.” Or “I’m just a fast eater.” Yes, I understand. How about slowing down just one meal a day? For all of you counselors out there, we can just call it a mindfulness meal. If you’re a ‘fast’ eater, try eating a ‘medium’ speed. If you’re a ‘medium’ speed eater, try ‘slow.’ You don’t have to change everything overnight; see what happens when you allow yourself to savor the flavors a bit longer and chew your food more carefully (Some say to chew 20x or more per bite!). You may notice that you feel full faster, or that you’ve digested your food better. Excellent!

Tip #3: Get in rhythm with your bio-circadian rhythm.

We're relaxed, we’re chewing slower, now what?  If you can, eat around the same time each day. Your ideal digestion time is approximately 12 pm - 1:30 pm, when your digestive fire is at its peak. Find your own natural rhythm and your body will thank you. As you may or may not know, eating most calories at night can lead to excessive weight gain. 

Tip #4: Honor your appetite.

In this sometimes crazy culture that worships thinness and is often so judgmental of different body shapes (for us guys too!), it’s almost as if your appetite is bad. Especially if you're on a diet, your desire for nourishment can become the ‘enemy.’ Sound familiar? Marc David calls this a ‘toxic belief’ that we may internalize from society, our parents, or others around us. In reality, your appetite is natural and essential! It is a beautiful metaphor - how attuned are you to your appetite for life? Eating may be a substitute for other kinds of experiences - intimacy, sex, social connection, pleasure, etc… (See my blog post about it here).

Eating challenges are doorways into a deeper inquiry about your relationship with your body and emotional needs.

There is no miracle diet. Yes, achieving macronutrient balance is important- getting enough healthy fats and proteins as well as complex carbs. Selecting high-quality ingredients is ideal, but if you’re increasing stress though unrealistic dieting goals, you can still actually put on weight because of the reduction in digestive capacity due to stress. 

In closing, I invite you to honor your eating journey where it is right now. Not when you lose 5 pounds, or look a little different, but now. When we view our eating habits with just a little more curiosity and compassion, a small shift can happen over time that can change our lives.

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” 
- Carl R. Rogers


"Eating with awareness is the most important and powerful tool to transform your relationship to food and the body." 
- Marc David


Interested in learning more? Please feel free to download my Clean Eating 101 Guide here