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Why do some relationships fizzle out while others seem to stand the test of time? We've all heard about the honeymoon phase—those butterflies in the belly, the excitement, and the dopamine rush—but what happens when that stage inevitably wanes? Relationships often hit a crossroads where familiarity sets in, and the novelty fades, posing a significant challenge for couples striving to maintain passion and deep connection. How can we make love last when our biology seems to be working against us?

In this episode, we delve into the profound insights shared by a renowned biologist who explores the complexities of love from a biological standpoint. From understanding the chemicals that drive our attraction and attachment phases to practical strategies for reigniting excitement and intimacy, this conversation offers invaluable advice. Learn how to navigate the intricacies of your own love life by leveraging scientific knowledge to foster long-lasting, healthy relationships. Whether you're in a new relationship or have been with your partner for years, these insights can help you strengthen your bond and keep the spark alive.

Dr. Liat Yakir is a distinguished biologist, writer, and lecturer specializing in the biology of emotions and human behavior. She advises organizations on neuro-management (also known as neuro-leadership), leveraging cutting-edge insights from brain research to cultivate exceptional leadership skills and practices.

Dr. Yakir earned her Ph.D. and completed postdoctoral studies in molecular genetics. She also holds a master’s degree in hormone research. With years of experience in science education and communication, she has made significant contributions at the Davidson Institute for Science Education, the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute

In this episode

06:40 Understand love through a biological lens.

09:00 The three stages of love.

13:03 Attachment styles and their impact on relationships.

19:15 Why initial attractions can be misleading.

22:28 The conflict between stability and novelty in love.

30:08 The genetics of monogamy and polyamory.

32:53 Increasing dopamine levels to enhance relationships.

36:03 The role of jealousy and status in attraction.

38:11 Maintaining passion and intimacy in long-term relationships.

44:28 Overcoming sexual scripts and routine through play.

46:06 The importance of communication and appreciation in relationships.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Learn about your attachment style: Understanding your attachment style can help you identify patterns and work towards securing a healthier relationship.
• Engage in new activities with your partner, explore new places, or share challenges to keep the dopamine levels high and maintain novelty in your relationship.
• Regularly engage in physical touch like holding hands, hugging, or cuddling, as these behaviors release oxytocin and strengthen your bond.
• Use tools like the “3-Minute Game” to openly discuss and express each other's sexual and emotional needs and desires.
• Make a habit of giving daily compliments and words of appreciation to your partner to boost positive feelings and reinforce your bond.
• Manage stress together: Participate in activities that reduce stress, such as deep breaths or mindful exercises, which can help regulate your nervous system and bring you closer together.
• Spend occasional time apart engaging in independent activities to trigger the novelty effect and maintain excitement in the relationship.

Mentioned

A Brief History of Love (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find–and Keep–Love

ERP 287: How To Engage In The Art Of Giving And Receiving: Using The Wheel Of Consent – An Interview With Dr. Betty Martin

Evolve in Love (link) (program)

Connect with Dr. Liat Yakir

Websites: en.liatyakir.com

Facebook: facebook.com/liatyakir5976

Instagram: instagram.com/dr_liatya

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

About this episode

Liat, thank you for being with us today.

Thank you, Jessica. It's very nice to meet you and be here.

Yes, likewise. One of the things that I value about having conversations with people on this podcast is hearing from people in different disciplines. You're a biologist, and you've curated and gathered a lot, with the focus of what love is biologically and just what we might want to consider as we look at long-term relationship. Before we dive in, what would you like to share with people about how this became of interest for you?

Yeah. So I'm a biologist, my PhD and postdoc is in genetics. I'm from Israel and I did all my studies at the Weitzman Institute, and was very into the lab work and molecular genetics. But this topic became very interesting to me from the perspective and my life experience with love. I struggled with love. I became very curious to understand about our operating system and what is love actually after relationships—some of them were better, some of them were not. People around me, also my friends, got divorced and had struggles also with their love life. So I was starting to ask if it's so universal, the experience of being in love and how it starts and how it ends, maybe there is something that's probably biological. If it's so universal, this experience, and I have the scientific abilities and the scientific thinking, let's look at it from another perspective, from the scientific perspective. What do we know about love, and how can we learn from it from the biology, from understanding the brain and our operating system, to have better love life and to have healthy relationships and long-lasting relationship and real close, intimate relationships? I think all these insights are very, very important and can bring a lot of benefit to our lives, to our love lives.

Yes, no kidding! In my own experience, I have felt as though some of what I encountered was surprising in relationship, particularly challenges. I'm curious for you, do you distinguish between the initial romance stage, some people might even call lust, the neurochemicals that support that? Do you distinguish between that stage and then long-term relationship? I've always understood it to be like 9 to 18 months where that wears off. Do you focus on both? Tell us a little bit.

In the book, I gathered all the insights from many researchers, about what they say they found in their research about love in humans and in non-humans, in animals. We are basically an animal also, so we have all the instincts and all the hormones and the same operating systems. So it's very interesting.

Yes, when we dive in, we call love to all the stages. But basically, there are three stages of this experience. The first is the attraction stage. Why do we attract some people to our lives, and why do we find some people more attractive than others? What defines attractions? Then the infatuation stage, falling in love, butterflies in the belly. Like you said, nine months. Between six hours to two years.

It can be gone in six hours, wow.

Then the real part is the attachment, the long-lasting pair bonding and long-term relationship. In every stage, different chemicals play in our head. So in the attraction phase, it's mainly testosterone and estrogen. In same sex or in heterosexual relationship, it's the same. Basically, we look for people with good genes, fertility signs, youthful appearance, and good-looking people. So basically, it's good genes and fertility and health signs. So it's mainly testosterone and estrogen at the beginning, the lust and the sexual attraction. In the infatuation stage, we get more of the dopamine and serotonin. Serotonin is the happiness hormone, and dopamine is the pleasure hormone, and adrenaline. Because of the stress, you don't know if the person wants or doesn't want you. So you have a lot of anxiety and stress. But it also gives adrenaline, so it's basically very intoxicating.

Then, we are left only with oxytocin. After one or two years, we are left only with the bonding hormones, and we don't necessarily have anymore the butterflies in the belly, and we don't wait for every call and for every message, because the stimuli becomes familiar—we know the person, we know the touch, we know the kiss and how it's going to feel. So we don't have anymore the anxiety, the adrenaline. And we long for the security and the stability stage. But we have this conflict, because we are also addicted to the dopamine and the butterfly, and still we want the stability and the security of a long-term relationship. So mainly this is the conflict at this stage, how to make love last.

I love that that beared out in what you collected and the research that you curated. Because I feel that that is such a prominent challenge, the conflicting needs of security, closeness, intimacy, and also autonomy and maybe separateness, but also this sense of newness, excitement, uncertainty. That those are both true, and it's almost different directions. They're not always the same. I want to learn more about just what you might say around biologically how to support that.

But before we dive into that, were you coming across, in the attachment stage, any of the attachment research around how you're using the word system and people's physiological learning around relationship? Did that come out in what you were looking at?

Yeah, our attachment style is designed by our parents, the primary caregivers. Because hormonal mechanism works that when you get more of the hormone, more receptors are created in the brain, or are more expressed in the brain. So if I grew up in a house with a secure base, and all my needs were fulfilled—my parents touched me and hugged me and kissed me—so my brain learned what is love, more receptors in my brain. So I look for this kind of attachment, and I will feel more safe and more fulfilled in such a relationship. But if I grew up in a situation where sometimes they loved me and sometimes they hit me, or they didn't care about my needs, and I didn't get secure attachment. So the mechanism of emotions in my brain really coded love differently. Like, you can get a stable relationship, but it is not sure. All the time, you're anxious. So sometimes you will try to hold on to it, to be very dependent on your partner, very jealous, insecure, afraid of neglect, that someone will leave you alone. So you become more anxious.

If you never felt love and your needs basically were not fulfilled, you felt that the world is cruel and nobody cares for you, and if you cry, nobody will come. Maybe you'll get love only on conditions, or conditional love. So you learn that you cannot trust people, and there is really no love in the world. So you basically make a very cold relationship, not intimate closeness and attachment, because the brain or your system never felt closeness and intimacy.

So our brain is basically designed, the emotional circuits in the brain are basically developed and designed really early in our life, like in the first three or four years. So our primary givers have a lot do with imprinting the patterns of love in our system. Through our whole life, we can struggle with this if we didn't have a safe attachment from the beginning. But I always say that we can do a lot of work. With our awareness, we can rewire our brain. So it's not deterministic, that if I didn't experience love from my parents and from my family, I'm doomed not to be successful in relationships. I don't think so. I think that we can change our brain if we really want to, and if we do very extensive work about the way that we attach to people.

Yeah, it's almost recoding. Not to say that that initial coding process doesn't still exist, but we begin to build new codes that uplevel, update, upgrade, if you will. Do you see the attachment mechanism influencing the first stage of attraction?

Yes, of course. I think this is more from the psychological perspective. After that, you already have this basic coding in the brain, it also affects to whom you attach and whom you attract. I'm talking in generalization, but anxious attachment style usually are attracted to the avoidant, the ones that they don't trust. They have this tragic dance between them because they cannot fulfill each other's needs. So basically, if you have insecure attachment style, the best practice or the best tip is to really work on the awareness that you will be attracted to people with safe and secure attachment. Because people with secure attachment can help us develop and heal from our insecurities. 

Okay. So that might be a challenge for some, to really build the awareness as you're talking about. Maybe go a little against the natural instinct, if one grew up in an insecure circumstance where they developed some of the insecure attachment system, in the interest of developing more secure functioning long-term. So that's really important for people to know. Because that initial stage and all that's getting activated in that attraction stage, that might be going against what they're learning. One of the things that I'm hearing in how you're sharing these stages, is that do you see each stage as love? How do you define love? Because they seem very different.

So it's very interesting to know that the word love comes from Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, it's lobhaya, which means to go crazy.

Gosh, I don't think I knew that.

So it tells us that we gave a name only to this infatuation stage. So when you talk about love, also in the Disney movies and everywhere in the movies and in the songs, basically in our culture, we are focused on this stage of infatuation, which is very, very short. Like we saw, it's a very elusive stage. You don't necessarily love the person, you just love the feeling of being in love, or you love the feeling that somebody loves me and is attracted to me. It's basically more self-love, even. But as a society, when we named love, we gave a name only to this stage. So when we think about love, we think: Oh, I need to wait for the person, be so anxious to see him, and have these butterflies in my belly all the time.

I call love, for romantic love, I think we should change the way that we look at it. When we say love, we should mean the last stage: the attachment, the long-lasting. It's very powerful from one hand, but very difficult to maintain from the other hand. If we are only focused on the stage of the butterflies in the belly, then we are doomed to fail. Because biologically, it cannot happen. You cannot be attractive to something that is familiar after a while. When something becomes familiar, it's the Coolidge effect that I elaborate on in the book. 

This ancient brain, it's called in the scientific language as sexual satiety effect. You have this satiety effect, in which less dopamine is released in the brain in response to the same stimuli, the same signal, the familiar signal. So it's a novelty-seeking wiring. It makes us cheat on each other or find other people more attractive over time. Basically, this wiring is good for the genes. Majority of the species in nature have this wiring in the brain, which makes us try to spread our genes—not to put all the eggs in one basket, not to bring children only from one person, but maybe there are better genes in the area. So it's the novelty-seeking wiring. That's why we watch porn, men more than women, or cheat on each other. So if we have this wiring, it doesn't put us in the monogamous creatures basically, but in the polygamous creatures, to have many partners or one at a time. Polyamory, if you want. In humans, it's more a polyamory, which is the vast majority of species in nature.

Nevertheless, with all due respect to the genes that want to diversify themselves, we humans really have this need for stability, for security, for emotional attachment, for emotional support, and we find a lot of psychological benefit in monogamy. So basically, even though all the books say why we are not monogamous in nature, I'm really a fan of monogamy, and I'm very committed to spread monogamy in the world. Again, we'll be able to maintain a long-term relationship. It doesn't have to be for life. Basically, I think we cannot have the same relationship for whole life. Some people can do it. But it doesn't mean that it's for life. But we are familial creatures—we live in families, we live in clans, we live in groups—and we find a lot of psychological benefits with the person that we have shared memories and shared goals with, and a person that really, really knows us well from deep inside. So that not all the time, you need to invent yourself and be somebody new with another person. You have this really strong bond with a person, it's very important. We know that people that live in intimate relationships are healthier and happier and live longer than people that don't have strong attachments.

Yeah. Did you come across, I remember hearing someone who was in the field more biologically, who referenced some research that 20% of humans are not monogamous or more polyamorous. Did you come across anything? Because it sounds like what you're saying is, given the wiring and the brain structure and just the evolutionary science, that we are prone to seek novelty, to have the familiar wane as far as passion and desire, and that there are ways to perhaps work with that, if I'm hearing you about working with monogamy. So I want to ask about that. But just to put a pin in that really quick, do you feel like everyone is contending with this, or do you feel like there is a 20% that just are not monogamous? Tell me a little bit about that.

Yes, the research supports this. Because 20% of the population have a different allele of the receptor for dopamine, which means they need more dopamine in order to feel satisfied. So they are really novelty-seeking creatures. They get bored very easily, and they usually cannot find themselves happy in long-term relationship. They have this stage that they feel satisfied, but then something is missing. Even sometimes, they will also quit a job. They cannot stay in the same job for a long time, the same person, the same relationship. So they're novelty-seeking, they need more excitement than the rest of the population. So monogamy doesn't fit everybody. It doesn't fit all, and I think it's also a very important message that we need to learn more about ourselves and know thyself.

First, to know what is my attachment style, and how easily I get bored, and how easily I fall in love—when I get excited in the beginning, and then after a short time, it dwindles—and to know about my sexual needs, my sexual system, my sexual personality. I think the whole life is a journey of exploration, to understand more about yourself. What's good for the society or for everybody doesn't mean that it's good for me. So I think we are very lucky to be in an era or in a generation that we can really choose what our relationship should be, and there is no one size fits all like it used to be, through religion and other social institutions.

I do just agree with you, and also feel that as there's more research and science and people offering guidance around sexuality, and how perhaps people are more responsive or more instantaneous in their arousal, there's just so much to gain awareness biologically and psychologically around how we operate. So I think, with a little more openness, we can explore this, and not feel so lost or alone in the journey.

Yes. I agree. Also, another interesting, rather new research is about the genetics of monogamy. They looked at creatures, especially of course mammalians, that in mammals, it's very rare. Mammals like prairie voles are monogamous, while all the other voles are not. The prairie voles are very, very monogamous, like genetic monogamous or sexual monogamous, that they stay together for life and they don't look for others, and they don't usually cheat each other. They found that in this species, when they compared the genomes, they saw a change in the receptor for the cousin of oxytocin. It's called vasopressin. It's more the male version of oxytocin, the love hormone. But basically also, it's an attachment hormone. In this species, this gene is expressed more—there are more receptors in the brain.

So a group in Sweden said, we understand the genetics of monogamy, so let's check humans if we have the same gene, the gene that didn't change much. So they checked in male twins that are in relationship, with children. They gave the wife to give a monogamy test for the husband, like how loyal he is to her, how good he feels in the family, how happy he feels with the same woman—how monogamous is her husband. They checked the gene, and they saw that some of the men that got high scores in monogamy really had this kind of allele, a bigger expression, like the prairie vole.

So some people really feel very, very happy and secure when they have the same person. They want the familiarity, they need the security and familiarity, and other people need more excitement. Even if it's in the same relationship, they need more diversity and more excitement inside the relationship even, or in life in general. So it's very interesting, and we have a lot to explore in terms of the genetics and the hormones and the receptors. In animals, we can check and look into the brain. In humans, we cannot do this. But still, it's so interesting. I find it very, very interesting.

No kidding, me as well. I'm wondering, have you come across any studies that have looked at intentional practices? In psychology, I've understood that if a couple is in the rut of routine and habit, if they go somewhere new, that's a way to activate the dopamine. Or if they share in a challenge together and they overcome it together, if they have a win and they share it with one another, there's certain ways to activate the dopamine. Or perhaps having a beginner's mind. There's different ways of perhaps being really intentional about fostering a little bit more of this novelty or newness. 

Have you come across anything where that's had an impact on the monogamy receptor hormone, like an increase? I don't even know if this would exist, but if you measured at a certain place and time. I don't know how long it would take for the biology to start changing, or if you, in your opinion, think that this is even possible. But if you have a couple that's really dedicated to these intentional practices of incorporating more novelty, incorporating more of this investing in the relationship, that if you measure them in a particular time, like 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, that you would actually see the biology neurochemical differences. Do you understand what I'm asking?

Yeah, they didn't check. It's hard to check hormones. It's in the brain, and we don't have access to the brain, especially in humans. But basically, we know that we can, of course, raise the levels of dopamine in our lives. Dopamine is a very important compound, a very important hormone.

I will say two things. First, on the personal level, I need to take care of my hormones, my dopamine. Like, maybe sometimes, I'm not happy with my job, or I get too much into a routine kind of life. I can start new hobbies, new friends, new community. We are very communal creatures, we need more than only the primary relationship. We need a lot of relationships. So I can raise my dopamine with new, exciting things. To go travel alone in the world for one week, with a friend, not with a spouse. To be together, but also to be apart, to let the brain make this reset. If we are together all the time and do everything together, and sleeping together, staying together, eating together, everything together, this familiarity will rise. We will increase the Coolidge effect. In order to bypass the Coolidge effect, we need to be sometimes apart, and even a little jealous of each other.

Jealousy is a good erotic engine. Our brain is very erotic. But over time, work and routine, and of course, children. Children need stability and security, and they kind of ruin our eroticism because it's not good for them. We need to revive this eroticism, and the erotic engine is to do new things and to be separate also, to be jealous a little bit of each other. A lot of time, in surveys, when you ask partners, when do they feel attraction to their spouse after 20 or 30 years, usually they said, when they see them with other people—standing on stage, playing guitar, or lecturing, that other women or men want to get access to my husband. 

The attraction, it's basically our sexual desires, and the hormones that create our sexual desires are testosterone and adrenaline. Usually, they're getting secreted when we see our partner's status.

We are very attracted to social status. So if I tell my husband all the time that you can't do anything, you are like a child, I have three children in the home, and you are useless, or something like this, his status is lowered. The testosterone is lowered, and then I'm not attracted to him anymore. I'm less and less attracted to him. We are attracted, like I said, to good genes. We are looking for fertility signs, and fertility signs are also social status. So when I look up to my partner, women or men, the sexual desires come back. So we need to be careful and to invest thought and also energy in understanding our sexual brain. Not to believe that we have the rings and the wedding, and now everything will be great, and we'll be together for the rest of our life, happily ever after. No, we need to work on it.

It's why I talk a lot about sex. Because in the sexual intimacy, it doesn't have to be the penetration or the orgasms. It's just to be sexual with each other, to desire, to long each other. We get a lot of oxytocin in this activity, a lot of serotonin. All the good hormones are secreted when we touch each other and give pleasure to each other, and we don't put enough emphasis on this. Usually, many partners don't necessarily talk about what they need, what they like, what they want, how they want to feel more loved.

Sometimes they make less and less, the desire declines, the dwindling of the lust, and then they make less sexual intercourse or touching each other. Everyone is going to sleep, after a long day with the kids, with work, everything. We have a lot of stress in our life. Stress inhibits our sexual desires even more. So the couple grows apart, and after four years, you feel very alienated to your partner. So I give a lot of emphasis about the oxytocin—talking to each other, hugging and kissing and caressing, and give compliments, and laugh together, and dance. 

There are many researches about couples that dance. It's a lot of good hormones while dancing together. Together, and even if you see your partner dance with another, it's great. It's a little bit testosterone and adrenaline, and then you go home together. Of course, it's not to make your partner jealous, this is not the point. The point is to feel the erotic energy, it's very good energy. Because if we sit at home with the food, with the pizza and movie, and then go to sleep, our body doesn't secrete the right hormones to feel the sexual desire. We just go to sleep because this was a long day, and we have the stability and security and familiarity, and it's good. People can stay together for their life for this benefit. But we want more. We want more healthy sexual life and more intimate relationship.

Absolutely. So, two things. One, it sounds as though you're of the belief that if people are participating in what you're describing, intentionally, to help increase the novelty, the dopamine, particularly in the erotic sexual arena, but just across the board, that people's satisfaction with monogamy would be increased, and perhaps biologically, their system would be also supporting that. Am I hearing that right?

Yes.

Then secondly, oh my goodness, it sounds as though, unfortunately, there could be quite a negative cycle, that if people are in that secure, comfortable place and run into habits and routines, and aren't doing the investment in the touch and the physical sexual domain, that it actually can really work against couples. Then conversely, if they are engaging in dance or cuddling or sex, that it secretes and helps support the neurochemicals and the hormones to add a positive bonding effect that helps people keep that passion and that freshness alive. Is that what I'm hearing?

Exactly. Even holding hands in the evening, looking in each other's eyes. Because in the digital era, we don't look enough in the eyes to each other, and we don't talk like we used to talk, because there is all the time this distraction. There are already researches that show that if one of the partners is on the phone the whole day, their probability to divorce is increased by 30%, and it's already 50%. So there is no more chance to be together with this cellular era. So even in the evening, holding hands, talking to each other, just looking in the eyes and saying good things. Appreciation, it's very important, because our brain is so negative. Because it's a survival machine, so it sees only the criticism, and we all the time criticize and see the bad things and the negative.

Women more than men tend to perfectionism. Everything should be perfect—the house should be clean, and the behavior should be good, and everything should be great. So we tend to criticize a lot, because we want everything to be perfect, and we forget that oxytocin is not secreted when we criticize each other. It's secreted when we say words of appreciation.

The words of appreciation also train my own brain. When I give compliments to my partner, I train my brain to see the good. It's not about him, it's about me. I train my brain to see the good. Maybe I heard at home, my mother was all the time criticizing everything, or the kids and the partner, and my system learned also seeing only the negative. We need to work on our brain and to do this practice, training. To have five minutes a day, find something good to appreciate in your partner, even connected to a characteristic that you love in the person. So from the first place, you fell in love with him because of this quality, connected to a quality that you admire in your partner. 

No kidding. You said earlier, just how that affects the neurochemicals if one is criticizing or dismissing.

Cortisol, stress hormone.

Well, I'm curious what you would think or say based on your understanding, that in the sexual intimacy space, if couples are used to a certain script around how they interact, that if partners are willing to take risks and get outside their comfort zone, while it might be scary and vulnerable, what do you see that offering, if people are willing to do that?

I really recommend to play games. There are many games, sexual games. There is a game of three minutes, I think it's called the three-minute game, that you ask your partner, what can I do to you for three minutes?

Oh, the wheel of consent. Is that what you're talking about?

Yes. Because we don't tend to say what we like, what we want our partner to do. Then there is this negotiation, maybe I don't want to do exactly this, but I can do other things. But from this game, I can understand what my partner did, because we tend to go to the script. The routine is so strong. Inertia, I all the time say that inertia is the strongest power of the universe, and it's hard to change a script that is already very imprinted in our relationship. So there are plenty of games.

Yeah, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Were you saying it's like four levels? If you have Partner A and Partner B, one person says, here's how I want to touch you that gives me pleasure, and then the other person does the same to the vice versa. Then third level and fourth level would be, here's how I want you to touch me that gives me pleasure, and then the other partner does the same. Is that what you're saying? It's profound.

Yes, it gives us an opportunity to talk about what we need. 

It's between three to six minutes, that's it, to ejaculate. Because there are predators and there are competitors that want the female, so he doesn't have time. The biology of the male usually is not designed for foreplay and for pleasuring. But basically, to come, ejaculate, and have this feeling or sensation of release—cortisol levels down, serotonin up, dopamine up, and go to sleep, the body feels very calm after ejaculation usually. But it's not the female system.

The female system is very different. Our brain works differently. During a sexual activity, the prefrontal cortex of the man shuts down first when he's sexually aroused. The area of thoughts, of self-criticism, of the ability to see the other person, this area is shut down. Just do your thing. Evolution has wired you this way. In females, this prefrontal cortex will shut down only, and the activity will be lowered only during orgasm. She will have a harder time to get into orgasm because she has all these thoughts and thinking about herself—maybe I don't look good, I got fat. All these thoughts in our brain that kill the libido and give us a harder time to get to orgasm.

So the way for women to enjoy sex better is first to lower the activity of the prefrontal cortex. And how do you lower the activity? I all the time say, sex we do from the brain, not from the organs. From the brain, not from the genitalia. It's all about the brain. If I have a lot of stress, from the kids, from the work, from people that get into my nerves, and my forehead works all day, in order to lower the activity, I need first to feel secure and calm and get the body with the good hormones, to be relaxed. So a lot of caressing and touching and talking. Maybe there are many things in my head, and I just need to take it out and tell you what happened to me today or what I feel, and then to touch, and then to look in the eyes and to say good words.

Then afterwards, I become more into it and feel my body will be ready. It's not six minutes. It really starts in the afternoon when the couples come together. So I need to feel more relaxed, and then we can have a really better sexual life. Maybe there will be no orgasm, and it's okay. It's just to be together. It's not all about ejaculations and penetrations, it's just different. If I don't tell my partner, and usually women tend not to talk about sex, because they didn't teach us. The whole patriarchal society in all the generations were about how to keep women from expressing their sexuality. So we didn't learn it from our mothers, and we didn't learn it from us for ourselves, and we don't talk about it much. I think it's changing, but still, we have a lot to do. At the same time, men learn how to make love from porn, from the age of nine and eight. So we have this huge difference now, that they come with really very bad scripts of how to make love with a woman. We need to talk about it. We need to talk about it in order to get to more, more intimate relationship and not doing him a favor. You hear women say, and men also, I did him a favor.

Well, I think in partnership, if we're talking about heterosexual relationships, I think I've heard many men say, while they might orgasm or feel that, but if their partner is not really into it, they can feel it. It's not that same level of neurochemical or hormonal increase because of the oxytocin or the bonding. If she's not expressing genuine desire and affection and warmth, that is not as satisfying.

Okay. I feel like we could go on and on, and I have so many other things I want to ask you, but I know we're winding down. Is there anything you want to say that we haven't gotten to, just in closing here?

Yes. I elaborated in my book there, scientific prescriptions to maintain long-term relationship healthy and close relationship. Even if it's after divorce, it doesn't matter. It's just we really wish to have a good relationship. I say it's all about chemistry and hormones and neurochemicals. 

So I think we can learn a lot from biology in our life, our love life and relationships.

Oh my goodness, it sounds like putting it front and center and having a real direct focus that will serve us. Our neurochemicals and our hormones are so incredibly powerful, and I don't know that we're always really giving it as much value or credit as it deserves. You wrote a book. Is this what you're helping people really be able to have better understanding and also have better prescriptions for?

Exactly. So it's called A Brief History of Love: What Attracts Us, How We Fall in Love and Why Biology Screws it All Up. It has all these explanations about the biology, and also my story, my struggles with love and relationship. I'm still struggling, but I think this knowledge, it gave me a lot to do this research and to look for all the studies and all the brilliant work people did and the scientists did about this topic. So it was interesting for me also, and I hope that people will find benefit in this.

Wonderful. I'll make sure to put the link to your book on today's show notes. It occurs to me, I know there's a lot of people doing biohacking as far as aging. Actually, that was one of my questions I was thinking about earlier, was just how aging affects fertility and this attraction. But we don't have time for that today. But it seems as though you're offering people an opportunity to biohack some monogamy or just really supporting the connection.

Yeah, biohacking relationships. This is great.

Yeah, wonderful. Then, is there anything else you want to point people to? It sounds like your book is the main way to really get access to what you're sharing. Is that right?

Yes, it's on Amazon. Also, I have my website, LiatYakir.com, there is also interesting content there.

Wonderful. I'll put the link to your website as well on today's show notes. Thank you so much for everything you've shared with us.

Thank you so much. It was so nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Bye-bye.

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