Don’t be so serious! Play, y’all.  IN THIS EPISODE, we get silly! We discuss how beneficial play can be within our relationships. We share the most common ways partners play with each other & We spill the tea on the secret pet names we have for each other. So yesterday was Valentine’s day, and in light of this oh-so-romantic holiday, we thought we’d do an episode all about how to make relationships fun! Do you and your partner(s) get playful with each other? Do you bring silliness in to your daily lives to break up all the mind-numbing mundanity of having to get shit done? When we think of play, we typically think of children’s pastimes, but the options for adults are pretty limited. We might play video or board games, or enjoy a sport, but our daily lives tend to be fairly serious. What with all the responsibilities we have to manage.  However play has been shown to be highly beneficial for both our mental & physical health! General playfulness benefits our lives in all sorts of ways, like reducing our stress, making interactions with others more positive, boosts our creativity, can help us be more physically healthy, and just makes us feel good.But how does it affect our romantic relationships? So this may come as a surprise… but we love science based research. According to studies we were able to pull up on the web, the research that has been done on play, and specifically play within a romantic structure, suggests that couples who are playful with each other, tend to have deeper & more satisfying relationships.  And they last longer, too!   Here are some links for you to check out: https://www.primalplay.com/blog/the-top-10-reasons-to-make-time-for-play https://www.jstor.org/stable/1129507 https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/benefits-of-play-for-adults.htm https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_playfulness_can_do_for_your_relationship https://spsp.org/news-center/blog/proyer-brauer-playfulness https://www.psypost.org/2022/01/playful-adults-have-more-have-more-romantic-partners-study-finds-62406 That Study about playful adults having more partners https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-human-sciences/article/adult-playful-individuals-have-more-long-and-shortterm-relationships/C6F025906BD5678DC13F723E5FD6BF77