In today's podcast, I explore the importance of self-care and couples' routines for maintaining energy levels and nurturing relationships. Sharing three simple actions: couples breathing, handholding, and smiling at each other. These practices promote relaxation, release oxytocin, and trigger 'honeymoon' hormones, fostering intimacy and well-being. Prioritizing these small gestures can lead to significant positive changes in your relationship. Tune in for more insights and add a smile whenever you can! 

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About the Host:

Meet Crystal, your relationship and social health coach. Crystal is the founder of Sparked Forever Relationship & Singles coaching. She started her journey supporting the neurodiverse community in navigating this, sometimes frustrating, neurotypical social world. Lessons and inspiration from her earlier work drives Crystal’s passion for bringing couples and singles together through acceptance, understanding and big picture thinking to grow vibrant relationships. Crystal understands that the foundation for our social health and well-being starts with making connections to others. When Crystal is not working with couples, she loves to be out on adventures with her partner and bonus kids or spending time connecting with friends over good food and fun music.

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Welcome to our love space today. It's love month still, I think this is going to be the last episode of love month, we've been thinking about all things love this month, so and how to really increase it or, you know, make our love connections have more quality. And I guess and more connection about them. Right? So yeah, we've been talking about vulnerability, we've been talking about making love into an action, all of these good things. And I wanted to, you know, I've had a few people message me. And, you know, even though I want you guys to paint in the details yourself, I understand that not everyone is there yet. And even though we're starting to understand that our relationships and especially our long term relationships, you know, that our love in them is not just this, like, magical thing that is there or not there, but it's something that we actually choose to take action and choose to grow. Choose to, you know, put effort into and an intention into. Okay, so, you know, I've had some of you message me now that we have this understanding and be like, I know, I'm supposed to fill in the details myself, but I really don't know how what to do. So, we've talked a little bit about, you know, the words talky part, right, so even though we're talking about actions last episode, and if you haven't listened to that one about making love into a verb or an action, please do I believe that's episode 10. I think it's called Love action. That's something like that. Go check it out. And as always, like with with everyone messaging me and asking me these great questions, always, you know, contact DM me on Instagram at sparked forever or through tick tock, I believe Tik Tok is sparks underscore forever. And you can find me in those places, you can also find me on my website, Spark forever.com. And you can reach out to me ask me any of those detailed questions that you want. Because I know we talk a lot about the big picture. And some of you just aren't, you know, aren't there yet for being able to fill in all your details, some of you are, and some of you aren't. And that's cool, we will get you there. And definitely the stuff that we talked about on the last few podcasts for sure. Those we would all cover and dive way deeper into, and, you know, my beyond the big day work that you can see on my website. So if you want to get into that, if you want to dive deeper, go check it out. And we can make that happen for you. Any hotel, I've had some people ask for the details. And that's super cool. And so one of the things I think popped out was to me, you know, I think before we can maybe do some of these actions, is getting the energy to do them. So I know with COVID A lot of us that year blip two year blip a year and a half blip, whatever it was for you. You know, I think we're still recovering from that I think our energy still recovering from it. I think all the things that are going on in the world right now are maybe stopping our energy from boosting back to maybe where it was before COVID. For some of us No, but I think there's a lot of people out there who are like as still, you know, we'd never can go back to the past, we can never be exactly the same. But they're still I think some people is I'm a totally included in this where I don't feel quite quite there yet. So I mean, one of those things, the first step, and here we like to always work on our little baby steps, right? We like to do our little pieces. If you're not at okay, then we're gonna get you to okay first before we try to get you beyond okay. So one of the I mean basic things for having the energy to put into your relationships or the energy to turn your feelings of love into a visual of visible visual, visible, observable actions, towards your love of life is to have the energy to do it. And usually, and the basic way to get our, you know, kind of lifeforce and our energy going again, is to have a good self care routine. Now, I hate the way self care gets thrown around, because it really does get thrown around, unfortunately, and people tend to like, you know, put into things like ooh, do like a face mask or a bubble bath or whatever. But there's actually some foundational pieces of self care that you really need before you can even think about doing the bubble baths and that that will provide you with any sort of benefit. So those foundational pieces, I've learned a lot through this just getting coached myself on them, because that's always important, right? I'm not just the person, you know, who does the support Coaching, I also go out and get that support when I need it. So with the burnout piece or the self care piece, you want to make sure you're doing those foundational pieces. Am I getting enough nutrition? Am I getting enough fruits, vegetables, fiber, things that are going to generally make me feel give me a little bit more of just that physical energy? Okay, so am I feeding myself appropriately? And my watering myself appropriately? Like a little plant? Right? Am I getting enough water? Am I taking my vitamins or whatever you need to take that gives you that boost? Am I getting movement in my day? Is that a walk? Is that dancing around? You know, in my living room? Is that going to the gym? Is that doing a class with a friend? I don't know what it is for you. But are you getting some daily movement? Or at least some movement a few times a week? Because that boosts energy levels? For sure. And of course, are we getting sleep? I know that's a big problem for many of us nowadays. But kind of if we're working on these foundational pieces, that's going to give us kind of a little basic boost of energy, that's going to be our foundation for then building other self care, rituals and routines on top of that. So make sure you have those going. I'm not your expert, and you're specialists in those foundational pieces. But if you DM me, I can point you in the direction of some great people. So there we got, so we need those foundational pieces. What I want to give you I think, because we've been talking about you know, vulnerability, and that's a lot about words and sharing and things like that. And we just jumped into thinking about love as an action. So those physical things we wanted to do, I wanted to give you a few physical ideas, purely physical ideas, to color in your love picture with, okay. So again, these are just ideas. Maybe they're not all going to resonate with you. If they don't, that's no problem. But hopefully, they will hopefully some well, or hopefully they will inspire another physical action that you can do. This is what I'm hoping for. Okay? So be inspired, or you know, or be connected with these ideas, give them a tribe. Okay, so the first one, and you and trust me, you have to trust me on these, I know, when we start getting into the mirror be like well, Crystal, for some of us was a little too heavy, Debbie, maybe a little too touchy feely, but trust me, these are so, so important. And again, if you're kind of like ad they sort of resonate, or like I'm having trouble being inspired by them, get in touch with me. Because then you need these you need these in your life. And like I cannot tell you, they are the tiniest things you can do. And they make so much difference for your romantic connection between you and the love of your life, an amazing amount of difference. So here we go. Let's dive into the first one. Some of you are gonna think this little cheesy. Here we go reading together. So I don't know if any of you guys have ever been to you know, I've gone to some of those like, relationship kind of like trade show things. And you know, I've gone to the like tantric sex talk and there was to talk about, like the how the breathing is really important in those kinds of things. So here we go. So breathing together is actually truly well researched, very important for you. We even know that practicing intentional, deep breathing ourselves is good for our stress levels. It's good for you know, so many different things in our life, our relaxation, and our calmness. But you can do it as a couple. Right. And it actually does a few different things when you do it as a couple. So I want you to picture however you want to do your breathing. I personally in my relationship, love to practice some synchronized, deep breathing in like big spoon little spoon position because I'm a super Cutler, actually, me and my partner are both super cuddlers. And so you know, we like to do big spoon, little spoon, and we just kind of lie there and intentionally think about each other. And we don't go like 123 Okay, let's breathe together. We actually just like live there and listen to each other breathing and try to sync up our breathing. Right? Can you have a little breath? So we try to sync those up together? And you know, for some people, you might need to start at 20 ish seconds. 30 seconds. Like again, we're not really timing it, but you may like lie down and be like, well, this feels super awkward or weird.

Whoo opportunity to get out of you. Your Comfort Zone, right to be a little vulnerable with each other trying something new, great. Then another twofer. Awesome. Okay, so you know, and just take that moment and lie there and think about each other's breath intentionally listen to each other breathing intentionally, and see if you can match it up together. Okay, that's what you're going to do. So, and I mean, for me, you know, it, really, it actually puts me to sleep now. Because it has become such a relaxing and calming thing to do. And as soon as I get into that little spoon position, and start intentionally thinking about his breathing, you know, like, I don't even know how long we do for it anymore. Because, you know, I probably just start to fall asleep right away. But again, we all know the benefits of these breathing exercises. And you can do any, you know, kind of, I would say any kind of bonded position you want. So again, like on the internet, they will suggest doing like the I call it the koala bear snuggle, but like the tantric position where you're kind of facing each other, and you're cross legged, but then you wrap your legs and your arms around each other. So kind of like a seated bear hug with each other. So you could give that tried that position. You could lie on top of each other, maybe you could even start just standing hugging. I don't know what you want to do, but anything where a lot of your body's connected, and you can really feel each other's breathing. So when you're doing like that, facing each other koala bear hug sort of thing with your legs and your arms wrapped around each other, you're not going to maybe feel as much as the chest go up and down as say, as the shoulders as you would if you were in a spooning position, but you're still going to be able to feel and hear your partner's breathing. And that will help you sync it up. And we and like I said, we all know the regular old benefits of deep breathing, and that it's linked to reducing stress and increasing relaxation and mindfulness and blah, blah, blah. But when we do it, as a couple, we actually get to experienced, like, a harmonized moment together, we also get to practice mirroring each other and mirroring I know, if you look it up on the internet, there'll be a lot of things like it can be used by a narcissist to manipulate you and things like that. So let's not go down that rabbit hole, let's assume that the partner we're with is kindful, caring, loving person and that we don't have to worry about them manipulating the practice of mirroring. So if we're in that mindset, then you know, it's a super healthy way very constructive way to get some mirroring in and especially if we're kind of at that okay or below, okay zone, in our relationship with each other, right, we were hitting a bit of a rough spot, being harmonized, and having that moment of connection without any words or agenda, or pressure is going to be magic, that's going to be your magic feeling. Right? That you don't have words or agenda or pressure. You are just physically communicating your harmony with each other. Wow. Oh my gosh, that just gave me tingle, thinking about it in that way. Okay. And this is again, something you can easily add. Right? So again, with self care, sometimes we get a little overwhelmed. Because you know, we already feel burnt out, we already feel tired and exhausted, then people are like add in an hour walk, add in a blah, blah, add in making all of your food from scratch. And you're just like, Ah, I'm already exhausted. How can I add these things in? Right? So this deep breathing, like I said, you can do it for you can start with 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, five minutes, the whole time, you're lying on the couch and watching Netflix together. That's right, if you want to spend to watch Netflix, and start off by sort of thinking about your breathing together, and then every once in a while be like oh, yeah, I was still breathing together. Oh, we're not let's synchronize that up again. Okay, now we're breathing together again, cool. And then, you know, maybe you'll zone out after about 30 seconds of that and get back into the show. But you can easily put that in and all of those tiny moments of that synchronized harmony. They'll add up, they'll go towards something, right. So it's a, it's a thing that you can easily add into a time where you're already having contact during the day, right? If you're doing if you're a snugglers or cuddlers. Or even if you're not, you know, have a little 32nd One minute two minute breathing snuggle. When you get into bed at bedtime. Have it when you wake up in the morning, right? And it's even a good thing like even if you have mixed scheduled and some person wakes and when one of you wakes up a little earlier, you know, you can kind of wake up the other person can have wake up, you can have a little bit of a snuggle, synchronized breathing time and then that other person can go start getting ready for their day. And then you get the other person and could just like chill out in bed and they're still in a relaxed state because we didn't like wake and wake them up or just like him snuggling and breathing with you. Right? Maybe the more awake person can match the more sleepy person's breathing. Whoa, cool. How easy is that so easy. If you're not, you know, maybe another moment you can add it into your day would be when you're waiting for your morning coffee to brew and you can stand in the kitchen and have a little synchronized breathing hug together, right? Or if you hug goodbye, right? Or hug Hello, in the evening, when you come home at a little 10/22 moment, we're just holding each other and having that breathing together. Okay, so I'm not asking you to add a lot. And it will been so much to your relationships so much. And you know, I'll get a little a little spicy here. But not that spicy, actually. But even like after that, when you still kind of like connected in there together, have a moment to stop and pause. And just Luxuria rate, I can never say that. Luxury, we're right in that moment. And match your breathing pan. Wow, it will feel amazing. It will feel so much different than then anything you've ever tried. It's very cool. Okay, the next tiny, and I remember that, that that synchronized breathing that couples breathing 100% No words not verbal. That is a physical only activity that you're doing together. I mean, maybe you have to talk about or be like, hey, I want to do this thing that I've been thinking about. And you might find is odd or weird, great vulnerability. Anyhow, Okay, the next one. And this is again, so simple. You'll maybe even do an IRA for this, but so important. Holding hands, right? I had some hand holding. And so I don't know if you know, there's a lot of couples out there who do hand holding a lot of hand holding at the began to relationships, because you just want to touch and be close to each other and just like, so great. And then it can kind of fade out and dissipate. Well, let me tell you about hand holding. And this even goes again, for any kind of social relationship or connection we have. So you so you could even benefit from doing it with a friend, or a relative or a loved one of any kind. But here's the research, this comes out actually of the Harvard study for adult development, which started all the way back I think, in the late 1930s. And this was actually a study that they've been doing where they've been following people long term, to see what helps people thrive. So not what helps prevent disease or like, so what are like more like indicators for disease, but kind of looking at the positive lens, like, Okay, who out of this research group is thriving? And what do we see their habits and their routines and their lifestyles involved? So they found that, you know, obviously, hand holding, we could probably have guessed this without looking at this study that it obviously because it's a touching thing probably produces oxytocin, and it does. And that's the cuddle hormone that people talk about. So great. So holding hands produces more of that cuddle hormone, that cuddle hormone is that bonding and connecting hormone that we usually see in like, the I think it's the after the honeymoon stage of our relationships. So that it's coming in at that at that place. Perfect. Cool. Well, great. So just by holding hands, we're releasing the hormone that helps us bond and feel closer together. Fantastic. But what I think is actually more cool and exciting is it was also find found blood found. It was also found to send signals to the vagus nerve. Okay, that's our, you know, rest and digest of nerve right, that we're always trying to relax again, the deep breathing actually helps relax the vagus nerve to depending on the kind of deep breathing we do together. But anyhow, and so the vagus nerve sends signals into our hypothalamus in our brain, and then our hypothalamus, in turn send signals elsewhere in our body, and we actually from holding hands can see a decrease in heart rate. So a lowered heart rate and lowered blood pressure.

And it helps with managing neurological stress responses. Watch, so not only does it release that hormone, right, our oxytocin, but it also lowers our heart rate and our blood pressure and our stress responses. Amazing. So, again, I think that you can a physical thing, it needs no words. It needs no words about feelings or emotions or anything like that, which is great. Because if you have someone if you're in a rough spot, and I mean, I usually like to work with couples together because that's where you're gonna get the most wrote, I'll also work with singles. And I'll also work with people just wanting to do you know, that social health emotional growth piece. But, you know, if you are in a bit of a rough spot, and you are in a relationship with someone who is resistant to go going to counseling, or coaching or working with someone like me, these tiny physical things are someone who is a little scared about being vulnerable, does not talk about their feelings, whatever the resistance is, you can do these physical things. And they don't involve any of those scary word feelings, talking about problems, all of those kinds of parts, and they can improve the relationship, they can improve even that self benefit of like, oh my gosh, is lowering my heart rate and my stress levels and my whatever. And it's increasing our bonding hormone together. Oh my gosh, it's like a like a four for one. Amazing. And again, we all know we can put in handholding we anywhere, right are not anywhere, but like lots of places. So we could do it. While we're watching TV. Why not, we can do it while we're going for walks while we're driving with each other. Even if we're zoning out on our phones, I mean, it depends if you need two hands to scroll or one hand is cool. But you can even have a little handheld every few minutes until you need your hand. And then handheld. Again, you can even do it during that you can even double up and hold hands while you're doing your couples breathing exercise together. Oh my gosh, another two for one, which makes it like a million to one with all the benefits for both of the things. Alright, perfect. So so far, we've got our couples breathing, and your hand holding so many benefits is going to bring you closer together. Now again, these aren't things where it's like I hold a hand when time feels the same, no, but these are little tiny habits that you can easily add in every day to things that you already do. And they will get you to that closer connected, better place where you kind of just like, hey, we've been playing hand holding in for a while. Now one day, you just end up and you're like, Well, we're way more physically connected with each other, we're starting to open up and try out this vulnerability piece, we're starting to do more love actions towards each other, right. That's how these little tiny physical things work. And the last one, again, another teeny tiny piece for you guys to try out is smiling. So not everyone, sometimes we can forget right to smile at the loves of our lives at our partners at our families during the day. Because we are just so caught up in that hustle and bustle. Again, we know that smiling and maybe you didn't, maybe there'll be a new fun fact for you. But we know that smiling, that just doing it yourself and seeing someone else smile, or even like laughing together also does this releases dopamine and serotonin. So those are your mood boosting hormones. But let's not forget that dopamine and serotonin are those hormones that we also release when we're in that infatuated honeymoon phase. So that smiling at each other in a long term relationship actually unlocks some of those honeymoon phase hormones. So that means we'll start to get a little bit the more we smile at each other and enjoy each other, or laugh with each other, the more we start to get some of those hormones that we had in the beginning of our relationship. Wow, super cool. And, and that's going to relay that taking some of those things that from that new relationship energy piece or from that honeymoon phase, and pouring it in or accessing it into our real relationship energy into that everyday energy that we can have for each other. That's going to maintain us for the long term. And again, we'll know that this can be added right smiling, it can be added to pretty much everything. I'm probably an over smiler. But we can add it into so many things we do right during the day. And they've even said in some of the studies I was looking over, which sort of surprises me because again, you don't want to be fake or disingenuous with your partner. But even if you're like in a mock mood, if you do like a right like I'm trying to smile at you, right kind of thing that it actually sort of feeds into eventually you actually really think that like some real smiles, and it actually still boosts your mood even, I mean not as much as a real smile, but even if you're kind of faking some smiles as long as you're not like I am begrudgingly thinking as if you're like oh I need to add in a smile. That will boost your mood too. So not as much like I said as real smiles but there does seem to be good research behind fake it till you make it with smiles. Great. Okay, so we have our three things or three small physical things. Oh actually it just popped into my head like if you want a concrete example of when to add in a smile. How about when your partner hands you your morning coffee? Or when or maybe if you like my partner never has me my morning coffee bla, Okay, why don't you hand them their morning coffee and with a smile. Hey, go All right, turn that smile on, hand them something, get dinner, when you're passing them food, when you're doing whatever kind of maybe, you know, kind of thing where you might make eye contact with each other or take a peek at each other. Give them a smile. Add that in. Okay, so we've got our breathing, our couples breathing, we're going to add in our hand holding, we're going to put in some extra smiles, all things we can do, without words, all things we can fit into our day, every day, or can be combined together in our day. Right these tiny things to add to a relationship energy, add to our positive actions, and it's going to keep us sparked