5 WAYS SCIENCE CAN IMPROVE YOUR LOVE LIFE. Science isn’t just for splitting atoms or figuring out how to start a colony on Mars, you can also use it to make your relationships happier, stronger, and last longer. Our dating coach Lisa Daily is here with some new scientific data empirically proven to improve your love life.

1 Reward good news with enthusiasm

“One of the best tips I’ve seen recently from science having to do with improving relationships is the work on Active Constructive Responding,” A study at UCLA found how you respond when your spouse tells you [for example] that he’s just been promoted. An enthusiastic reaction such as ‘Wow! That’s tremendous. That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week. I’m sure there are more great things to come for you. You’ve definitely earned it. Congratulations!’ is called the active-constructive response. Couples who describe themselves as having a spouse who is active and constructive in response to their good news are more committed to the relationship, more in love, and happier in their marriage.”

2 Don’t make sacrifices in your relationship when you’re already feeling stressed.

A study conducted at the University of Arizona found that while making sacrifices in a romantic relationship is usually a good thing, doing so when you are feeling extra stressed-out may not be. 164 couples, married and unmarried, filled out daily online surveys, over seven days as part of the study. They recorded the daily small sacrifices they made for their partner and were asked to report on their stressors that day. Scientists found that people who made sacrifices for their partners generally reported feeling more committed in the wake of their kind actions. But when they made sacrifices on days when they had experienced a lot of stress, they did not.

3 Find someone who likes to be as close as you do. But not closer.

David M. Frost, Ph.D., of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, recently led a study in which a sample of 732 men and women completed three yearly surveys online. Current and ideal closeness were assessed by choosing from six sets of overlapping circles. “Closeness in general does indicate better relationship quality, but what matters more than how close people actually feel in their relationships is how much the amount of closeness they feel aligns with their ideal level of closeness with a romantic partner,” explains Dr. Frost. “If their actual closeness is out of line with their ideal closeness, they are at heightened risk for breaking-up, relationship problems, and poor mental health.” What mattered was the discrepancy, not the actual amount of closeness. “Over the three years of our study,” Frost continues, “we saw that those people who are able to reduce their closeness discrepancies over time showed the most improvement in relationship quality and mental health.”

4 Kiss like it’s your third date

A study by Oxford University researchers suggests kissing helps us size up potential partners and may be a way of getting an existing partner to stay. By setting up an online questionnaire in which 900 adults answered questions about the importance of kissing, scientists learned that kissing was rated by women as more important in long-term relationships, which suggests kissing plays a role in mediating affection and attachment among established couples.The amount of kissing in a relationship was directly related to relationship satisfaction. However, and most interestingly, the amount of sex in a relationship was not related to relationship satisfaction. There is something unique about the intimacy of kissing with long-term partners that is more closely related to how well the relationship is going than just sex.”

5 Be grateful for the little things your partner does

Has your partner recently made you breakfast, washed your car, or called to check on your day? Take an extra minute to really feel grateful. Focusing on gratitude to our romantic partners can act like a relationship booster shot, say the authors of a study on positive thinking and romantic partners at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The authors studied 65 couples and tracked the day-to-day fluctuations in relationship satisfaction. Everyday ups and downs in relationship quality were reliably marked by one person’s feelings of gratitude. This research thus suggests that small pings of gratitude serve a crucial relationship maintenance mechanism.

For more on this topic, check out Lisa’s bestselling book STOP GETTING DUMPED and her dating blog DatingExpert.tv