The 3 parts of Valentine’s Day....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 2-11-2016

This is an upgrade of my post of this name on Friday, 2-14-2014.

                            There’s some good new information in it since last time!

Valentine’s Day is the yearly day of the heart and love.

1.  The main one of the 3 parts is the caring, affection, and romantic love part.  This can either be the head over heels bonding when love starts or the more lasting caring and affection for someone you have cared about a long time and know well. 

2.  As that kind of love is often quite literally felt in your heart especially when you hug your loved person, the day has come to have the red heart icon as its symbol. 

But to stay around to enjoy the caring kind of love and to function well in the physical mating, and pleasure part, having your heart be healthy and strong is very important.

In fact, February is National Heart Month.

3.  The physical mating and pleasure part can be really, really nice when it goes well and both lovers feel an afterglow of pleasure and relaxation after the intense pleasure that builds and builds in intensity.

* * * * *

1.  The caring, affection, and romantic love part goes best when you focus on why you love and value your partner and want them to be well and have a good life -- and you try to do the best for them you can.

It helps a lot to focus on what they do well and what things they do often that make you feel cared for.

It helps even more to forgive them for sometimes being tired, stressed, and cranky and to focus on being warm and affectionate towards them anyway.

Regular touch and hugs ground your love partner – AND you and help make your relationship close and rewarding.

Similarly, a study found recently that when relationships go well, both partners initiate and then respond to brief verbal communications.  The researchers called these “bids” as the one to go first wants and expects a reply back of some kind.  These can range from simple expressions of silliness or a witty observation to a quick comment on the weather. They take many forms.

When almost all the time the initiating partner gets a warm reply; and this happens when each one goes first, the relationship is healthy and emotionally supporting.

At times this can be challenging to do; but the more often you reply warmly the better.  And, the more often you can forgive your partner when at some particular times they don’t do as well, that also helps. 

I find when I’m focused on the many things I have to get done each weekday in the early morning, it’s hard to reply.  But I make an effort to reply positively when I can in between task.  I let my wife know that I DID notice and like what she was doing.

At the end of the day, sometimes I get extra energy from looking forward to the evening and rest; but my wife sometimes is so tired she needs “quiet time.”  That caused problems for a while; but now I’m careful to give her the restful quiet she needs when she asks for it.  And, she often will comment on something interesting after a bit which re-starts things

What if things don’t go well?  Do two things. 

Let them know you’d like things to go well and you think they can and radiate warmth and caring and look on them with that in your expression -- even if just for today.

But for long term having things go well if they aren’t always now, there is a new and effective resource you can get now and use so that will be easier next Valentine’s Day. 

It’s a book called “Crucial Conversations” and has practical and effective and tested techniques to make it safe to work together on issues where you disagree or things don’t go well to create win -- win solutions or solutions almost that good you both can live with. 

It has specific ways to do this even when you feel like being angry or shutting down or your lover actually does.

It has saved marriages and it also makes business discussions of important issues and differences go dramatically better.

It may be in a local bookstore now as I got my copy that way just a few weeks ago.  And, for sure it’s available on Amazon.

2.  As that kind of love is often quite literally felt in your heart especially when you hug your loved person, the day has come to have the red heart icon as its symbol. 

But to stay around to enjoy the caring kind of love and to function well in the physical mating, and pleasure part, having your heart be healthy and strong is very important.

The difference in your heart health between the lifestyle that harms it and the one that keeps it well and healthy is huge.  There are now a large list of doable things that you can do to get the lifestyle that keeps your heart healthy.  And, our last most recent post yesterday on Thursday, 2-13-2014, this week is a great resource for how to do that.

How to have more protective HDL….Thursday, 2-13-2014

And, there are a huge list of new findings since then that give you enormous leverage on protecting your heart which we will post on soon!

We now know how to cut your risk of heart disease AND increase your blood flow in as little as three or four weeks for example!

3.  If you do the first two things and learn what pleasures your lover and what pleasures you and see to it those things happen, the mating and pleasure part can go well too.

Open yourself to being caring and expressing it and responding well to what your lover responds to really helps.  The more you do those two things, the more satisfying the mating and pleasure part becomes. 

Emphasize fond gazes and caresses and hugs.  Those cause the release of a wonderful feeling of gladness and bonding hormone called oxytocin. 

Be sure you do the second part that keeps your heart and nerves healthy.  And within that set of things be sure you do the more intense if brief kinds of cardio and the superslow strength training.  Those two kinds of exercise have been proven to enhance and improve the mating and physical part of love for BOTH men and women – NOT just men.

Recently, I found out that adding brisk 6 or 7 minute walks five or more times a week is a time efficient third way to get useful exercise.

I you stop consuming things that close up your blood vessels, eating things and taking supplements that open up your blood vessels AND do these kinds of exercises your blood goes where it’s supposed to go in the volume it’s supposed to get there with. 

(One of the great things about chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, is besides tasting good and enhancing your mood and positive emotions, it ALSO helps boost healthy blood flow!)

Your nerves feel what they are supposed to feel.  And your testosterone that enhances desire and pleasure is greater.

There are also supplements that boost the testosterone which both men and women need enough of.  Taking 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 helps AND makes it dramatically more likely you both will be healthy most of the time.  (We will be doing a post on that soon also.)  Taking the inexpensive herbal supplement fenugreek twice a day does the unusual double of helping you keep your blood sugar at lower, healthy levels that help blood flow

AND it has also been verified that it boost testosterone!  Taking at least the 15 mg a day of zinc that a good multi vitamin and mineral supplement has helps.  (This is where eating oysters got its reputation since oysters are quite high in zinc.)

Effective strength training boosts testosterone.

So does eating health OK protein foods and fats and oils. 

Conclusion:

I hope your Valentine’s day and your year until the next Valentine’s day go well in all three ways!