The Nervous System in Love
Tender
& true.
Nine practices for the people you love, the person you are, and the heart that’s sore.
Tender means two things: gentle, and sore to the touch. This page is for both. Each practice is three steps, a few prompts, the research behind it and one rule. Four have a guided mode. All nine are open. No email, no lock.
Before you start: find your pulse, at the wrist or the side of your neck. That’s the instrument every practice on this page is trying to tune.
Where’s your heart today?
February sells one kind of love. There are at least three worth practicing, and which one you need changes by the day. Pick the door that fits. Nobody’s checking.
Together
For the people you love
A partner, a kid, a parent, a friend. Three small ways to be closer on purpose.
Yours
For the one you live inside
You can’t pour from a cup you keep kicking. Three ways to be on your own side.
Mending
For the heart that’s sore
Left, leaving or just lonely this month. Three ways to treat the ache like it’s real, because it is.
Fourteen valentines.
One a day, February 1 through 14. Each envelope holds one thing to do in a minute or two, and the study behind it. Some are addressed to someone you love. Some are addressed to you.
Your opened envelopes are remembered in this browser only. Each study is summed up in a sentence here. The fine print for every one is on the research page.
Together
For the people you love
A partner, a kid, a parent, a friend. Three small ways to be closer on purpose.
RespondFor: When they walk in with good news
The Good News Drill
Most of us train for the bad days: how to listen when it’s hard. The research says the good days are the bigger tell.
Being there means showing up when things go wrong.
Being there means showing up when things go right, too. Out loud.
Stop what you’re doing
Phone down, eyes up. Turn your whole body toward them.
Ask for the story
“Tell me everything. How did it happen?” One question before any comment about you.
Stay in it
Say what it means: “You worked for that.” Then let them have the moment a beat longer than is comfortable.
Try it
Four ways to answer good news
Someone you love walks in and says the line below. Pick the reply that sounds most like you on an ordinary Tuesday. Be honest. Nobody’s grading.
The four kinds of response come from Gable, Reis, Impett & Asher (2004). The lines are mine.
Whose good news did you half-hear this week?
What does your face do when someone else wins?
Who asks you the second question? Tell them.
In one study of 79 dating couples, how a partner responded to good news was tied more closely to the couple’s well-being, and to whether they were still together two months later, than how they responded to bad news. Earlier work from the same lab sorted responses to good news into four kinds. Only the engaged, glad one went with closer relationships.
Gable, Gonzaga & Strachman (2006), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(5), 904–917, doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.5.904 · Gable, Reis, Impett & Asher (2004), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(2), 228–245, doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.2.228
Ask one more question.
Try it on the next piece of good news you hear today, however small.
HoldFor: At the door, morning and night
The Three-Breath Hug
Most hugs are a pat on the back and a release. This one lasts until you’ve both let out three slow breaths.
A hug is a greeting.
A hug is a signal the body reads as: you’re not handling this alone.
Ask
“Can I get a real one?” A yes is required. A no is a complete answer.
Hold and breathe
Chest to chest. In through the nose for four, out for six. Three rounds. Let your shoulders drop on each exhale.
Let go slowly
Step back, look at them, and say nothing clever.
Who in your life only ever gets the quick version?
When was the last hug you didn’t end first?
This isn’t only for couples. Kids, parents and friends count.
On your own today? Cross your arms over your chest, hands on your upper arms, squeeze, and take the same three breaths.
In a study of 404 adults exposed to a cold virus, frequent hugs blunted the extra infection risk that came with more conflict, and went with milder signs of illness in those who got sick. In another, wounds healed more slowly after couples argued than after they supported each other. No study tested three breaths. The studies counted hugs, not seconds. Three exhales is my rule, because it’s the shortest hold that still feels like you meant it.
Cohen, Janicki-Deverts, Turner & Doyle (2015), Psychological Science, 26(2), 135–147, doi.org/10.1177/0956797614559284 · Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (2005), Archives of General Psychiatry, 62(12), 1377–1384, doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.62.12.1377
Ask first. Then don’t let go first.
Once a day for the fourteen days. Notice who starts asking you.
AskFor: Date night, a long drive, a quiet table
The Slow Reveal
Small talk keeps people at the distance they started. Taking turns with questions that get a little braver each round is how researchers build closeness on purpose.
We already know everything about each other.
You know who they were the last time you asked.
Take turns
One asks, both answer. Then swap who goes first.
Go in order
Three rounds, each a little deeper. Don’t skip ahead. The warm-up is what makes the deep ones safe.
Listen to the end
No fixing, no topping their story. “Thank you for telling me” is a complete response.
The deck
Nine questions, three rounds
One of you reads the card. Both of you answer. Then pass the phone.
Works with a partner of thirty years or a friend of three weeks.
If a question lands wrong, skip it. Nobody owes an answer.
Afterward, name one thing you learned.
In the original experiment, pairs of strangers who spent 45 minutes trading answers to questions that grew more personal felt closer afterward than pairs who made small talk. Agreeing on big issues made no significant difference. What mattered was the gradual, mutual opening up. The nine questions here are mine, written in that spirit.
Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone & Bator (1997), Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(4), 363–377, doi.org/10.1177/0146167297234003
Both answer. Nobody fixes.
The study’s own 36 questions are free to read at Greater Good in Action.
Yours
For the one you live inside
You can’t pour from a cup you keep kicking. Three ways to be on your own side.
SoftenFor: Right after you mess up
The Kind Minute
You would never talk to a friend the way you talk to yourself after a mistake. This borrows the friend’s voice for two minutes.
If I go easy on myself, I’ll get lazy.
People who were kind to themselves after failing studied longer for the retake.
Name it
“This hurts.” Or: “This is a hard moment.” Say what’s true, without the story.
Zoom out
“Other people feel this too. I’m not the only one.” Struggle is the membership fee for being a person.
Be the friend
Hand on your chest. “May I be kind to myself right now.” Then ask: what do I need?
The two-minute lab
Run the experiment on yourself
In the study, self-compassion slowed the heart. See what yours does. Find your pulse with two fingers at the wrist or the side of your neck, then tap the heart on every beat until it has counted ten.
A thumb on a screen is not a heart monitor. This is a way to notice, not a medical reading. Nothing is saved.
What would you say to a friend who did exactly what you did?
Where do you feel self-criticism in your body?
What’s one small thing you need in the next hour?
Eleven minutes of a self-compassion recording lowered heart rate and sweat response and raised heart rate variability in 135 students. An upbeat recording lifted mood without calming the body. In four experiments, people prompted to be self-compassionate after a failure worked harder afterward, not less. And an eight-week course raised self-compassion more than a waitlist did. The three steps follow Kristin Neff’s self-compassion break, in my words.
Kirschner et al. (2019), Clinical Psychological Science, 7(3), 545–565, doi.org/10.1177/2167702618812438 · Breines & Chen (2012), Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143, doi.org/10.1177/0146167212445599 · Neff & Germer (2013), Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(1), 28–44, doi.org/10.1002/jclp.21923
Talk to yourself like someone you love.
Use it the next time you catch yourself mid-insult.
Wish wellFor: Morning coffee, the train, a waiting room
Rings of Goodwill
Loving-kindness is the oldest practice on this page. You repeat a few plain wishes, first for yourself, then outward, one ring at a time.
Love is a feeling you wait for.
Love is also something you can rehearse.
Start at the center
Yourself. “May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.”
Widen the ring
Someone easy to love. Then someone you barely know: the barista, a neighbor, a face from this week.
Go as far as today allows
Someone difficult, if you’re up for it. Then everyone. Stopping early is allowed.
The five rings
Same four wishes, wider each time
The guided version lights one ring at a time and holds each wish long enough to mean it.
Who came to mind first when you thought “easy to love”?
Which ring was hardest? That’s information, not a grade.
Try one wish, silently, for the next stranger you pass.
Seven weeks of this practice raised working adults’ daily positive emotions, which went on to build purpose, social support and life satisfaction. A few minutes of it made people feel more connected to strangers. A review of 24 studies and 1,759 people found medium-sized effects on daily positive emotion. The practice itself is mettā, from the Pali for goodwill, taught in the early Buddhist Mettā Sutta.
Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Pek & Finkel (2008), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1045–1062, doi.org/10.1037/a0013262 · Hutcherson, Seppala & Gross (2008), Emotion, 8(5), 720–724, doi.org/10.1037/a0013237 · Zeng, Chiu, Wang, Oei & Leung (2015), Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1693, doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01693
Start with you. Go as far as you can today.
The wishes work in any words. Use the ones you’d actually say.
WriteFor: Before bed, seven nights running
Dear Me
For one week, end the day by writing yourself the note a good friend would write about whatever went sideways.
Journaling means listing what I did wrong.
This letter has one job: say what a friend would say.
Pick today’s sore spot
One thing. A mistake, an argument, a feeling you didn’t like.
Write as the friend
Start with “Dear me,” and write what someone who loves you would say. It makes sense that it hurt. Here’s what I see in you.
Read it back once
Slowly. Then close it. Tomorrow night, another.
Tonight’s letter
Seven nights, seven seals
Write it here or on paper. When you’re done, seal it. Your words are never saved or sent anywhere. Only the seal is remembered, in this browser.
Dear me,What does your kindest friend sound like? Borrow their voice.
No advice in the first three sentences.
If you miss a night, the week isn’t ruined. Pick it back up.
More than 200 adults wrote online for seven nights. Those who wrote themselves a compassionate letter were less depressed for up to three months and happier at six. A comparison group wrote about early memories. People the researchers scored as extremely needy did not get the same lift, which is a reason to try it, not a reason to expect a miracle.
Shapira & Mongrain (2010), The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(5), 377–389, doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2010.516763 · Breines & Chen (2012), Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143, doi.org/10.1177/0146167212445599
Write what a friend would write.
Seven seals, seven nights. Then decide if you want another week.
Mending
For the heart that’s sore
Left, leaving or just lonely this month. Three ways to treat the ache like it’s real, because it is.
FeelFor: When the wave hits
Name the Ache
Heartbreak is not only in your head. Scans of freshly rejected people show the brain’s pain and craving circuits working hard. So treat it like something physical: find it, breathe with it, and stop poking it.
I should be over this by now.
My body is reacting like it’s hurt and in withdrawal, because in a real sense it is.
Find it
Where is it right now? Chest, throat, stomach. Put a hand there.
Say what it is
“This is heartbreak. It’s physical. It will move.”
Breathe, then choose
Five long exhales. Then pick the next ten minutes: water, a walk, a text to a friend. Not their profile.
The lab’s recipe for producing this pain was simple: look at their photo and think about the rejection. Don’t run that experiment on yourself at midnight.
What time of day does it hit hardest? Plan that hour.
Who can you text “rough one” without explaining?
The urge to check on them is a craving. Cravings crest and pass.
In one scan study, 40 people looked at a photo of the ex who left them while thinking about the rejection. It lit up regions that process the sensory side of physical pain. In another, the photo activated reward and craving areas in 15 people who were still in love, and the response was weaker the more time had passed. Both studies used the same trigger: the photo.
Kross, Berman, Mischel, Smith & Wager (2011), PNAS, 108(15), 6270–6275, doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1102693108 · Fisher, Brown, Aron, Strong & Mashek (2010), Journal of Neurophysiology, 104(1), 51–60, doi.org/10.1152/jn.00784.2009
Feel it in the body. Don’t feed it with the phone.
If the ache in your chest comes with pressure, shortness of breath, or pain spreading to an arm or your jaw, that is not this practice. Call 911.
RewriteFor: A few weeks out, with a pen
The Silver Lining Draft
Not a gratitude list for your ex. A plain account of what the ending made room for.
Writing about it means reliving it.
Writing about what it opened up lifted people’s mood without stirring up the hurt.
What led up to it
What wasn’t working that you no longer have to manage?
The ending itself
What did you do, or get through, that you can respect?
Since then
What have you gotten back? Time, friends, sleep, a part of yourself.
The draft
Three boxes, fifteen minutes
Nothing typed here is saved or sent. Copy it out if you want to keep it.
What led up to it The ending itself Since thenSmall counts. “I sleep diagonally now” is a real answer.
You’re not being asked to be glad it happened.
Read it again in a month.
87 newly single people were randomly assigned to write about the positive side of their breakup, the negative side, or something neutral. Only the positive-writing group gained in positive emotions, with no rise in negative ones. It worked best when the breakup had been mutual. If yours was sudden, or you’re in the first raw days, start with Name the Ache and come back to this.
Lewandowski (2009), The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(1), 21–31, doi.org/10.1080/17439760802068480
Write what it made room for.
Nothing you type here is saved or sent anywhere. Copy it out if you want to keep it.
RebuildFor: When you’re ready to be a “me” again
Who Am I Now?
A long relationship turns “I” into “we”. Part of the ache is not knowing who is left. In one study, people who kept being asked to reflect on their breakup came out with a clearer sense of themselves, and felt less lonely for it.
I lost half of myself.
I’m finding out which half was always mine.
Write five
Finish “I’m someone who…” five times. No mention of them.
Fill a crack
Each sentence mends one crack in the heart below with gold.
Prove one
Pick a sentence and do one thing this week that makes it true.
Mend it
Five sentences, five seams of gold
Each finished sentence fills one crack. Keep them about you: what you do, love, notice, refuse, make.
What did you love before you met them?
What did you stop doing that you miss?
What would your oldest friend say you’re like?
210 recently separated young adults were assigned to four in-depth visits over nine weeks or just two check-ins. The four-visit group regained a clearer sense of who they were apart from their ex, and that explained their drop in loneliness. Separately, divorcing adults who spoke about themselves with more compassion were less distressed up to nine months later. Kintsugi is the Japanese craft of mending broken pottery with gold, so the repair shows.
Larson & Sbarra (2015), Social Psychological and Personality Science, doi.org/10.1177/1948550614563085 · Sbarra, Smith & Mehl (2012), Psychological Science, 23(3), 261–269, doi.org/10.1177/0956797611429466
The repair is allowed to show.
Your five sentences are kept in this browser only. Clear them any time.
Rather do it in a room?
The long exhale from the Three-Breath Hug is how most of my classes begin. Come do it with other people in the room.
Anchored Flow Wednesdays · 6:30 PM · New Lenox
Anchored Flow is my weekly class at Yoga Face and Body Spa in New Lenox. Come on your own or bring your person.
Rob Grigsby · RYT-200 · NeuroSomatic Intelligence practitioner
These practices are education, not medical or mental health care. They are for ordinary hard days. They are not a treatment, and they are not a substitute for a therapist, a doctor or a friend who will sit with you.
Chest pain or trouble breathing: call 911.
If you are thinking about ending your life, or you are in crisis: call or text 988 (the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, United States).
If you are afraid of your partner: the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. The Together practices are for relationships that are safe. If yours isn’t, skip them.