Why Relationships Matter

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If you're living as if your life is bursting at the seams, slow down, whether making love or making dinner.

Living at a too-fast pace is bad for your health and bad for your relationships.

Instead of expanding your to-do list, expand the quality of each experience.

What's the most important thing you can do for your relationship? Slow down! Slow down when you're talking, slow down when you're making love or making dinner, slow down your life in general.

We have increased, and continue to increase, the pressure on ourselves to do more faster. We multitask, which we know from the research is simply a way of tricking ourselves into thinking we can be more productive by doing more than one thing at a time. Research shows that not only does it not work, but that the more you multitask, the less efficient and productive you become.

And multitasking is part of the larger phenomenon of keeping ourselves in a state of pressure. There is irony in the feeling that somehow we don't have time for our lives, as if our lives have somehow leapt the natural bounds of time and energy.

When we live at this too-fast pace, we induce physiologic changes–extra cortisol and adrenaline. In the short run, this may feel good. We feel successful at moving faster, getting more done. It also creates a state that helps us ignore feelings of fatigue or loneliness created by this exaggerated pace. Then, as with other chemical addictions, there is let down and craving that eventually drives us to get more, just to relieve withdrawal. In the meantime, our health suffers. This is the effect on us individually.

In relationships, our too-fast life deprives us of the time we need with our loved ones. And in the time we do have with each other, we are often tired, irritable, and distracted. Interacting in........

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