Transcription
[Music] [Applause]
Is there a tool out there to create more lasting love? In Sweden, where I come from, we have around 40,000 marriages each year, and each year we have around 20,000 divorces. Why is it like this? How many in here has been in love? Raise your hand. How many here would say love can be quite complicated? Yeah.
So, so today, it's been today it's been one year. Today it's been one year since my girlfriend Amanda and I started to work on a project. On a project to scientifically increase the love back to our relationship. And I'm not a scientist. I'm not a professor. I'm just a regular guy who did an awesome experiment. And that experiment changed my life. And it changed my relationship. And today, I want to give you concrete tools so you can do the same. The sweat sounds like 16 well-invested minutes of your life. Good.
Do you remember the feeling of falling in love? For me, it happened 10 years ago with Amanda. I mean, every time I looked at her, it was like my heart was melting. I mean, she could be away from me for 20 minutes, and I would pick up my phone and send her his texts: "Hey love, I missed you. Do you miss me after 20 minutes?" I mean, I was that guy who could come to her work with with flowers. And I usually played these songs to her, and I couldn't even play the guitar.
But time flies, huh? And seven years passed. And after seven years, it's not really the same, right? When it's more you, she's been gone for ten hours, and you pick up your phone and you send her this text: "Hey, don't forget to buy some chips for tonight. The movie will start. Mine. Don't be late." No songs, no flowers.
And last year, we come to a make-it-or-break-it point in our relationship. I still remember that late October evening when Amanda called. She was crying. She said, "Jonathan, I don't think our relationship will work." I sat down on myself that evening and and I was asking myself, "Why did this happen?" I mean, I felt ashamed over myself because she was the love of my life. But why did it happen?
So I was thinking about it, and I realized that I have been living this success-chasing life, chasing fame, chasing glory as an adventurer out in the world, doing expedition after expedition. And for what? Because somewhere along that path, I I lost the sense of feeling certain emotions towards myself and others. I could feel the emotions of stress, anger, frustration. But the emotion of love, gratitude, empathy, it was very, very hard for me to feel those emotions. And I guess that might be a big reason why the relationship wasn't working.
So a couple of days after that, I went to my mentor and I told him everything. I told him about the feelings, about the love problem. I told him everything. And he smiled. He smiled. He looked at me with a playful smile and he took a glass and he said, "Jonathan, I will have explained this in a very simple way because you're only 26." And he took his glass and he added some water. And then he also added ten straws in the glass. And then he said, "Jonathan, the glass is your brain. The water, the liquid, is your emotions. And these straws are the receptors. Okay, Jonathan? Okay."
And Manny said, "Jonathan, now the water, the liquid, is your emotions of frustration, stress, anger. The feelings you have an easy time to feel. And here, here you have 10 straws, strong straws. And these straws have a very easy time conveying these feelings, and you can feel them. It's easy for you, right?" And I said, "Yes."
And when he said, "Jonathan, now the water, the liquid, is the emotion of gratitude, love, empathy. The feelings you have any haven't harder time to feel. Okay?" And then he removed nine straws, and only one remained. And then he said, "Here you only have one straw. And this one straw might even be blocked. And this one straw is called oxytocin oxytocin receptor. And oxytocin has the following effects: it increases your feeling of love, it increases your feeling of gratitude, and it increases your feelings of empathy."
"Do you want to feel more of these emotions, Jonathan?" "Yes, I want to." And he said, "There's one thing you must understand. Them. If you want to grow a muscle, if you want to grow a muscle, you need to work out almost every single day for a long period of time. If you do that, you might get muscles. Like I. It's the same way with growing new pathways in the brain, growing new receptors. You need to work out on certain techniques, basically every, every single day for a long period of time. If you do that, Jonathan, you might grow new oxytocin receptors, and you might be able to feel more of those emotions again. And if you apply that in your relationship, let's love. Let's love, Jonathan."
So I, so I ran home to Amanda and I told her about this. She looked at me quite impressed. Is she studying medicine? And we decided to give our relationship one more try. And we were going to do a project. We were going to do the oxytocin project. And that meant that we were, we were going to work on oxytocin creating techniques every single day for a couple of months and see what will be the result. Sounds interesting, huh?
So we googled, we analyzed, we looked for these techniques, and we found around 20. And today, I'm gonna share three of them. Are you interested to know what it is? Good. Because the first one can change the atmosphere in the room within seconds. And we're gonna try that technique. Okay? And this might even be a little bit scary for somebody, but it's okay. It's okay.
So I want everybody to stand up quickly because I don't have a lot of time. So we stand up. And now I want you, when I count to three, I want you to hug. I want you to hug the person that stands next to you or behind you. So I will count to three. So, one, two, three. Let's hug. You. Let's hug you. And hold. Hold. Hold. Hold. Good job. Give yourself an applaud. Your job. You can sit down. You can sit down.
[Applause]
Would you say the atmosphere in this room have changed? Yes. Hugging and touching increases the oxytocin production. And I mean, starting the day with some hugging and ending the day with some hugging. There are other more touching techniques to increase the oxytocin levels, but I won't tell you about them. Dirty audience. Amanda is an expert in giving and receiving hugs. So this is so simple but so, so powerful to have more hugs every single day.
The second technique I want to talk about, I use it every single day, and I've done it for six months now. I'd done it for six months. And that's gratitude meditation. Professor Robert Hammond said, "Gratitude blocks toxic emotions such as envy, such as depression, such as anger, which can destroy our happiness." Study after study after study say the same: gratitude increases our well-being. And for me, gratitude meditation has worth incredible.
I start every single day going down to the bridge. I put some calm music in my ears, and I'm focusing on memories of gratitude, often from childhood, because when we were children, we felt emotions more strongly. I look for moments of gratitude with Amanda. I look for moments of gratitude in the future that I really want. And I mean, starting your day. I spent four months in Africa working with these children. And some of these children, they basically ate the same food every single day. We had one football to play with. And some of them slept in the same bed. But they, they were the most grateful children I ever met. And I can sit there during the morning, some think about them. I think about if they can feel so grateful, then today I can be grateful too. Because in the society we live in today, many people, I mean, they take life for granted. But gratitude, gratitude, I would say, is the key to happiness.
The third one, the third one I want to talk about is communication. When we had our make-it-or-break-it point, we had a huge lack in communication. So this technique for us was essential. And communication in a way that increases the oxytocin production can easily be done. Researchers have provided us with that information. And the first one is eye contact. Eye contact triggers oxytocin production. A deep sense of eye contact. How does it feel? A little creepy? Her?
The second one is to dare to go personal. Dare to share your emotions. Because when I did my time in the military, I was taught to be a man, be strong, and don't cry. But when I tried it, when I tried to really share the emotions what were in here, that made a huge difference in our relationship. I promise you all the men who's in here. When I did that, that created more trust. And trust creates oxytocin production. My friend said, "Jonathan, you're in your head so much. If you're in your head too much, buzz that will disconnect you with your emotions. Try to go from your head down to your heart and communicate to Amanda through your heart." And I love that advice.
The third one is to talk about relationship fears. When we had a rough path, there were certain topics but I didn't had the courage to talk about, like children, like economy, like future house. And he was quite silly. I mean, I was a mountaineer climbing mountains all around the world, but I didn't have the courage to talk about children because it scared me. But we did it. We sat down, and I collected all of my courage, and I talked about it. And it was such a relief to talk about children, to talk about the economy, and to talk about the future. And we bonded so much strongly. So it's a very secret tool to create more lasting love. Yes, various. And it's called oxytocin techniques.
And because I only had 15, 16 minutes today, I can't give you the 17 rest. But there are so much for Efrat. But there are so much information out there on the internet, on books, on movies. There are so much information out there about this. And I challenge you. I challenge you if you can relate to my story with your partner to do the same. To do your own oxytocin project. Thank you.
I heard a question here: "How does it feel? How does oxytocin feel?" Do you wanna feel it? Yes. Do you wanna feel it? Do you wanna feel it? Alright. Why won't we bring Amanda up on stage? Isn't she beautiful? Well, Amanda, I, whoa, I loved you now for ten years. And I just want to say thank you. I want to say thank you for believing. Thank you for being the most wonderful person I ever met. And thank you for everything we've been through. And and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I'm asking you, do you want to marry me?
[Applause]
Thank you. Whoa, that was a speech. [Applause] [Music]