Quick and Dirty Tips

Posted: 31 Jan 2022 11:30 PM PST

Perhaps the most ambiguous or uncertain part of being in a romantic relationship is understanding signals of attraction. One of the questions I'm asked the most is, "how do I know if someone likes me?" Nonverbal clues that a person is romantically or sexually interested in you can be difficult to parse out from just general friendly behaviors. With that, we can misinterpret those cues as being something more than friendly when the other person didn't mean for it to be.

A behavior that signals that someone is attracted to you or is interested in you in a sexual way is called flirting. Flirting behaviors are important both in early-stage relationships as well as in more mature relationships such as marriages.

For people not in mature relationships, flirting helps to signal interest in something more from them. You may be interested in starting a sexual relationship with someone or escalating from a friendship to a more serious romantic relationship. You may flirt because it makes you feel good about yourself, or to get someone to do something for you.

In more established relationships, particularly in marriage, flirting can perhaps serve an even greater purpose than in dating relationships. Flirting in long-term relationships helps to maintain interest in the relationship, signal a continued attraction to one another, and improve relationship satisfaction. One study asked married participants about their flirting behaviors with their partners. A consistent theme in the findings of this study was that people stopped seeing flirting as purely a way to show sexual attraction and moved toward other motivations like feeling good about yourself and making their partner feel good about themselves, having fun with their partner, to create intimacy, and to make their partner feel loved and valued.

What are the five flirting styles?

Researchers have identified five flirting styles, or ways to display interest and attraction, that people may prefer or adhere to when attempting to court a potential romantic partner.

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How Exercise Can Boost Your Immunity

Posted: 31 Jan 2022 03:10 PM PST

What's worse than being in a pandemic with no end in sight? If your answer is to be in a pandemic with no end in sight during the peak of the flu season, you read my mind!

Actually, what's even worse is having a family with young children and two working adults, then daycare gets shut down for a week because another child tested positive for COVID. Trust me, it's no fun trying to convince two kicking and screaming toddlers to let you swab the inside of their noses when they don't want you to.

Although getting a co-infection involving COVID and the flu—nicknamed "flurona"—is rare, it's becoming more of a possibility as the flu picks up steam. I don't know about you, but getting COVID or the flu sounds bad enough by itself. The thought of having flurona sounds brutal.

Luckily, there are ways to safely, effectively, and naturally boost your immunity to protect against viral infections such as COVID and the flu. Moderate intensity exercise is one solution and has a good amount of scientific research supporting it. So whether you're looking to protect against a seasonal disease, or just want to naturally boost your immune system year-round, here are some key tips.

How exercise boosts the immune system

It's well known that physical activity is an important part of healthy living. Exercise can prevent excess weight gain, combat chronic diseases, improve mood, and promote better sleep, just to name a few of the benefits.

What's not as well known are the benefits of physical exercise in reducing communicable disease, including viral infections such as covid and the flu. The general consensus in a branch of research known as exercise immunology is that the immune system is responsive to exercise.

Without getting into too much unnecessary detail, research shows that moderate intensity exercise stimulates immune function in a way that can reduce the risk, duration, or severity of viral infections such as COVID and the flu. About 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week seems to be optimal for...

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