The importance of Date night is not to be understated. Date night is the easiest thing you can do for your relationship. This simple routine has some insanely positive benefits for you, your sex life and your health.
If you’ve ever been in a committed relationship, you know happily ever after isn’t ever after. In fact, a relationship takes honest effort everyday. And it’s about time we debunk our societal misbeliefs and misconstrewed perceptions, happily after doesn’t happen–and science knows how it goes.
In order to revamp our efforts, my partner and I started implementing a weekly date night. The rules were simple: every week we rotated and one of us chose a surprise activity we would do together. It could be as grand or as simple, the scale didn’t matter, as long as we stuck to it. Since our pact, we’ve found ourselves taking archery lessons, seeing plays and taking cooking classes. It didn’t really matter what did, as long as we were together and out of our disciplined routine. After only a few weeks we noticed a huge difference–we were communicating better, less stressed out about petty things, and we looked forward to our weekly escape.
It turns out there have been countless studies on what we thought was a genius idea. In fact, a study released last year from the National Marriage Project found couples who devoted time to each other at least once a week enjoy a higher quality relationship, and lower divorce rates. And were also 3.5 times happier in bed!
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The study also found couples who have regular date nights also have significantly lower overall levels of stress. Whether it has to do with the health benefits of sex, getting thoughts off your chest or just strengthening the relationship bond, those are powerful metrics we all could benefit from.
Bradford Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project says the studies conclusions aren’t “rocket science, but it’s an important reminder.” And that’s exactly what I found. What we were doing wasn’t revolutionary, but we just needed to remember to work on us more, not take things so seriously, and bring an exciting spark back into our lives.
As with life, a relationship doesn’t plateau. We never reach a point of extremely clarity, perfect health or nirvana that vibrates for the rest of our lives. Life is about ebb and flow. The constant effort you put into a relationship will feed back ten fold, and bring you closer over the years.
So if you are looking to foster higher levels of happiness, lower levels of stress, raise your levels of sexual satisfaction and create a greater commitment between you and your lover–this is it.
“You don’t have to swing from the chandeliers,” Dr. Helen Fisher, a scientist who studies the neurology of romantic love said in a New York Times interview. “Just go to a new part of a town, take a drive in the country or better yet, don’t make plans, and see what happens to you.”
image: nate.stevens
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