How Daylight Saving Time Affects Your Relationship

Everyone has their way of spending the extra hour. How do you spend it? Cuddling or connecting with your significant other?

Bummed about the shorter days and darker evenings that are coming? Do not be. From my perspective, Daylight Saving Time is an opportunity to learn how to fall back in love annually by pampering your partner with all the love and attention you have.

Here are seven ways to use shorter days as a way to spice things up with your partner.

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1. Go Back In Time

Assume you and your parent are back in the days before the invention of portable entertainment devices. Put aside your devices and pull out a Scrabble board instead. Feeling amorous? Construct a blanket fort for smuggling in. Some light-hearted time mingling with your partner without the distraction of flashing screens is a calming, spirit-enriching means to develop intimacy and connection.

2. Have Fun Outside

Do not allow the cold to deter you from venturing outdoors. Research shows that couples that sweat together have way more (and way better) sex. So, dive into that cold, crisp and refreshing weather for an evening run or stroll in the park. Even a brief jaunt in the vast outdoors will nourish your soul.

3. Go To Bed Early

What if you are finally mindful of your body, and rather than forcing yourself to stay awake all night long, you took advantage of your body’s circadian rhythm to get some extra sleep instead? Cuddle in together and wander off to dreamland.

Sleeping next to someone you love increases endorphins (chemicals produced by the body to relieve stress and pain). Additionally, if that snuggling time turns into some comfy sexual intimacy, even better.

4. Wake Up Early

Alternatively, you can capitalise on your restful night’s sleep to perform a little pre-dawn lovemaking. In the morning, you will both have more energy. It also enables you to start the day with physical and emotional attachment.

5. Entertain Yourselves

This is a good time to catch up on all of those Netflix shows you have wanted to watch. Host a Friday night season marathon starting with the first episode of the series. Or perhaps catch up on those films you did not watch in the theatres. The early darkness and cold outside are also legitimate excuses to stay in, cuddle under a warm blanket and appreciate some screen time together.

6. Light Up The Night

One of the perks of having darker evenings is that you can change the mood from gloomy to romantic just by lighting candles. Even better, make dinner by candlelight your new normal and spend the evening chatting away about the high points of your day.

7. Cook Meals Together

When the nights are dark, and the weather is cold, it is the right time to heat things up — in the kitchen. Allocate a day every week to make double batches of your favourite recipes and freeze them for hectic weeknights. It is more thrilling when the two of you work together in the kitchen. Embrace the satisfaction of sharing a fun, mutual objective and a sense of achievement.

8. Embrace Gratitude

You do not have to wait for Thanksgiving. Hence, why not move your schedule up and express your gratitude now? Buy yourselves a diary or journal to share and commit to each, documenting two things you are grateful for each day. Alternatively, you can email each other each day at lunch what you are most grateful for that day.

We live in a world where things seem to speed up so quickly that it is easy for us to lose sight of how fortunate we are (in life and love). A shared gratitude practice will serve you both tremendously.

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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

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