Helen Fisher, PhD

Articles

Couples: There’s Hope For Your Sex Life

Couples,

There’s Hope for Your Stalled Sex Life
Passion often drops off in a relationship after a few years. Here’s how to bring sexy back.

Originally published in the Wall St Journal
May 31, 2022

Confidence is sexually appealing. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist who studies people in love, asked more than 5,000 people what trait they found most important in a sexual partner. The answer wasn’t good looks or charm or a sense of humor. It was self-confidence.

“It doesn’t matter if you are 75 and flabby,” says Dr. Fisher, a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute. “If you are happy and self-confident, with a sense of independence and flair, you will be attractive.”

…

Many of us feel like we’ve lost a piece of ourselves during the pandemic. It’s time to get it back and regain our zest for life. This will help us reclaim our own sense of joy and confidence. And it will make us more interesting to our partners—we’ll have something to talk about other than the kids and work and what we just watched together on TV.

Read the Article at WSJ.com (opens in new window and requires a WSJ subscription)

12 Things People Get Wrong About Relationships

Psychology Today, February 7, 2022

Problems don’t disappear, and you don’t always have to be happy.

  • Love is important—but too many couples focus on the passion and forget the friendship. Passion fades and there are many ways to feel love.
  • Believing in soulmates is a myth that leads to a lot of unrealistic expectations about what your partner “should” do and who they “should” be.
  • Love is tough. You won’t always be happy and problems don’t magically disappear.
  • Successful relationships start with knowing yourself and knowing what you want.

Read the Article at Psychology Today (opens in new window)

This is Your Brain on Heartbreak

Love changes us at a physiological level, making us more sensitive to joy—and to pain.
By Florence Williams

We all know that when love is good, it’s really good. Research shows that romantic attachments, when they’re healthy and supportive, can be immensely beneficial for our health. Married people tend to live longer than single people and seem to fare better when seriously sick. But as poets and pop singers have long told us, when love goes awry, it hurts like nothing else. After my marriage ended—not by my choice—I found some comfort in art, but what I really wanted was science. I wanted to know why we feel so operatically sad when a romantic attachment dissolves. What I discovered is that love changes us so deeply—at a physiological level—that when it’s lost, we hurt more than if we had never loved at all.

Read more at TheAtlantic.com (opens in a new window)