**LOVE RIGHT NOW!**

Published by Diane Anderson, MA
Registered Clinical Counsellor

LOVE RIGHT NOW! is an electronic newsletter with the purpose of helping people create healthy, happy, loving relationships by transforming hurtful patterns of relating!

February, 2007. Volume 2, Number 2

Printable PDF version

VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL EDITION

NEWS RELEASE:
Vitamin "T" Better Than Chocolate on Valentine's Day!

Please forward Love Right Now! to your friends, family and associates.

To subscribe, please fill in the form at the top right of this page.

In This Issue:

Note from Diane
NEWS RELEASE: "Vitamin T Better Than Chocolate for Valentine's Day"
Love Byte
Action Step to Improve Your Relationships NOW!
More Action Steps
Counselling & Consulting
About Diane Anderson & Associates
About this Ezine

1. Note from Diane:

Dear Readers,

Happy Valentine's Day!

While I LOVE chocolate, I can't refute science and research!

This month's newsletter looks at a very important findings regarding the science of attachment and what touch--or as we like to call it here at Diane Anderson & Associates, "Vitamin T"--does to promote physical and emotional health!

Better than chocolate they say! Let me know what you think! Touch vs. Chocolate and why"

Email us and let us know what you think is better--touching or chocolate--and why!

Email:
info@DianeAndersonCounselling.com
(please put "VitaminT" in the subject line)!

The most imaginative entry will win a free "Got Vitamin T?" t-shirt!

Send those opinions in!!

Until next time...happy loving!

Diane

2. NEWS RELEASE:

Local Relationship Expert Says "Vitamin T" Better
than Chocolate on Valentine's Day!

White Rock, BC--February 14th, 2007--Forget chocolate this Valentine's Day! If you really want to boost your relationship and your health, reach out and touch someone!

Diane Anderson, a clinical counsellor and relationship therapist from White Rock says, "Touch is as essential to humans as any vitamin." And science is discovering that touching--what some call Vitamin T--not only feels good, but provides an incredible range of health benefits, including:

Releasing endorphins (Mother Nature's "feel good" drug) which protects us from feeling pain.
Flooding the bloodstream with "oxytocin"--also known as the snuggle drug--which creates a deeper emotional attachment and makes us long to be closer to the one who touches us.
Increasing resistance to depression, anxiety, senility, stress, and to physical ailments such as high blood pressure, asthma, cancer, psoriasis, and diabetes and many other illnesses and diseases.
Improving our quality of life and helping us live longer!

Despite this evidence, Anderson says, we do not touch each other often enough! When researchers studied couples in cafes and recorded how many times they touched each other, Latin couples touched 180 times per hour, European couples touched 110 times per hour while American and British couples touched twice and zero times per hour respectively!

"That's so unfortunate and so unnecessary," bemoans Anderson, "when we know with certainty that without touch, human beings fail to thrive. The evidence is overwhelming!"

And just as being deprived of Vitamin C leads to scurvy, being deprived of "Vitamin T" leads to 'emotional scurvy.' "Luckily, Vitamin T deficiencies can be as easily remedied as giving oranges to scurvy patients!" says Anderson.

She suggests that if you are in a relationship, be sure you touch your partner often. Small, caring gestures, like a touch on the shoulder, holding hands when you walk, or stroking your partner's hair can go a long way to generating positive feelings toward each other. Bigger touches--like kissing, hugging, holding each other close and lying skin-to-skin--helps keep relationships and people vibrant and healthy.

In fact, this kind of non-sexualized touching is very beneficial--and friendships can provide great opportunities to touch and be healthy. For example, a hug hello or goodbye, or a touch on the arm that says, "I'm so glad to be with you!"

Children thrive with respectful touch and genuine affection. And pets--your own, the neighbours', or the ones at the local animal shelter--long to be touched! The exciting news is that whether you're giving or receiving touch, the body doesn't differentiate--it just knows that touch is good!

And if you're all alone?

Anderson points out that even solitary creatures like the octopus need touch and will rub up against rock formations and wriggle into crevasses.

"Children who are alone attach to blankets and teddy bears. Adults are the same--attaching to that big comfy couch, fuzzy slippers, or a favorite sweatshirt. It's all an attempt to satisfy skin hunger," says Anderson.

"It's a shame we seem to limit our physical contact to only times of grieving, special occasions, or sexual encounters," Anderson states, "When touching can do so much to improve our quality of life!

So this Valentine's Day, perhaps in addition to chocolate, be sure to give (and get) a big dose of Vitamin T! Your life may depend on it!

3. Love Byte

"I have found that to love and to be loved is the most empowering and exhilarating of all human emotions."

Dr. Jane Goodall
Primatologist

4. Relationship Action Step #3—How to Improve Your Relationships Now!

Today, this week, this month, remember what used to do for your partner that made them feel loved and cared for.

Was is the way you hugged them everytime they walked in the door? The little love note you left on the dashboard or in a brief case? Was it the coffee you brought to the bedside on a Saturday mornings? Was it taking the time to ask and listen to what they really think or feel?

Make a commitment to do one of those caring behaviours, especially touching them--as a gift to the relationship and to your partner-- until the end of the month.

Notice what happens in your relationship. Notice how your partner reacts. Give the gift unconditionally, no matter what!

If you are on your own, what are caring gestures you do to make others feel loved and cared for? What are the caring touches you give to others

Is it helping a friend when they least expect it? Is it holding the elevator door with a smile for someone rather than rushing off to wherever you are going? Is it treating a cashier, or coffee barista, or waiter with genuine respect and dignity? Is it taking the time to talk to your neighbours, to show care to a child, to pet the dog waiting patiently for attention?

As they say, what you focus on expands, so if you want more love and care in your life, you must be loving and caring in your life.

Make a commitment for the rest of the month to focus on loving and caring gestures you give to others right now in the world. Notice how much love and caring comes back to you as you focus being what you want in the world.

5. More Relationship Actions Exercises

Want more tips on Relationships?

For more tips, download my 21-page FREE report: 21 WAYS TO WIN AT LOVE?

Or check out the Articles page on my website.

6. Counselling & Consulting

Are you struggling in your relationships?

Do you seem to have a pattern of being hurt or hurting others?

Do you want to take your relationship to the next level?

Whatever your relationship concerns and questions are, I can help.

Married, living together, dating or looking for that special someone, I will show you how to identify your relationship problems accurately, transform your frustrations into the moments that bring you closer together, and repair hurts that have occurred along the way.

I can also help you enhance and deepen an already solid and satisfying relationship by realizing your life-long desires and goals for loving.

Contact me for a free 10 minute phone consultation. Together we can explore how I might help you solve your relationship problems.

For general inquiries, you can email me and my Administrator will set up your free consultation, make an appointment or answer your questions at:
info@DianeAndersonCounselling.com

or visit my website:

www.DianeAndersonCounselling.com

7. About Diane Anderson

Diane Anderson, MA, is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who assists individual and couples in healing hurtful pattern of relationships and creating the happy, healthy loving relationships they long for.

Diane has been on all sides of relationships: married, divorced, and now happily remarried again. She knows what it takes to make or break a relationship as a couple, how awfully painful and costly it is to go through a separation and/or a divorce and how challenging it is to dive into the relationship swimming pool again!

She has also been a client of several relationship therapists, so she has a keen sense of what helps couples sort out their relationship troubles.

Diane says, "I am a happy, living example of how hurtful patterns of loving and relating can be changed!"

Diane lives and practices in beautiful White Rock, British Columbia, Canada with her husband, Tom who always manages to create a Valentine's Day surprise for her that is unique, creative, and an absolute delight...and usually has some element of chocolate involved!

8. This Ezine

Feedback:

Your feedback, input and suggestions for upcoming articles are always welcome and appreciated. Please send your comments to:

info@DianeAndersonCounselling.com

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Back Issues:

If you would like to read previous issues of this ezine, you will find them at: www.dianeandersoncounselling.com/articles.htm.

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Diane Anderson, MA
Registered Clinical Counsellor
T: 778-292-0260
E: info@DianeAndersonCounselling.com
www.DianeAndersonCounselling.com

Suite 188
800-15355 24^th Avenue
Surrey, BC
V4A 2H9
CANADA