Daily Deposits for your spouse: Touch

Research shows we need 8-10 touches a day. Positive touch (even just holding hands!) with your spouse causes a chemical reaction in our brains that produces oxytocin. This feel-good chemical improves our mental and physical health. It connects us, and even eases tension when in conflict. It just takes a little touch to make a significant impact. Below are a few simple ways to connect through touch! 

IDEAS FOR PHYSICAL TOUCH

• Walk up behind your spouse while they are working, or in the kitchen, rub their shoulders and tell them a few specific things you appreciate about them.

• When your spouse walks through the door, stop what you are doing, open up your arms, give them a LONG 20 second embrace. Thank them for all they do “out in the world” to bless your home and family.

• Before you leave for work, kneel at the foot of your spouse’s bed and massage their feet.

• While you are watching TV together, grab your spouse’s feet and give them a foot massage, or reach for their hand if they use their phones or computer a lot for a hand massage.

• Tell your spouse after a long day to lay on the bed, and give them a 20 minute full body massage. If you feel inadequate, grab a book or check out a tutorial online.

• In the normal rhythm of your day stop. Embrace your spouse. Grab their face with both hands and kiss them. Say, “I love you.” There’s something powerful and intimate when you put your hands on both sides of your spouse’s face and kiss them.

• During random moments of the day make it a point to touch your spouse. On the shoulder as you pass in the kitchen, grab a hand as you sit next to one another in the car, put your arm around them while you sit on the couch, put your head on their chest as you watch TV, touch their lower back while you walk together, embrace them from behind in the kitchen, pat their butt as they walk by you and tell them they are hot…Significant touches throughout the day go a long way!

• Hug your spouse and rather than just embracing them, massage their lower back, butt, and neck while you hug them… Trust us…they will love it!

• Get a Cosmo magazine and look up the monthly “list” of fun ways to make love. Let your spouse pick one and have fun! (Husbands will LOVE this if wives initiate!)