{"id":2758,"date":"2012-06-19T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/doinglifetogether\/?p=2758"},"modified":"2012-06-11T17:59:49","modified_gmt":"2012-06-11T21:59:49","slug":"four-minutes-four-times-a-day-to-improve-your-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/06\/four-minutes-four-times-a-day-to-improve-your-relationship.html","title":{"rendered":"Four Minutes, Four Times a Day to Improve Your Relationship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2012\/06\/ID-10076900.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2759\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2012\/06\/ID-10076900-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;ve been through years of relationship training. During those years, some ideas seem like good ones, others not so much. At a recent seminar I attended, I liked this idea and thought I would pass it on.<\/p>\n<p>The leader of the seminar, Dr. Gary Brainerd, suggested this simple strategy. Take four minutes, four times a day to connect with your partner. A small investment of time could make a real difference. Here are the four times a day to devote four minutes:<\/p>\n<p>1) When you both wake up. Take four minutes to touch, talk or do something to bring on the day.<\/p>\n<p>2) When you say goodbye for the day. Start your day apart together. Say something warm and positive and send each other off to face the day.<\/p>\n<p>3) The first moments you reconnect from being apart that day. Greet each other with a kiss and a few minutes of sharing your day.<\/p>\n<p>4) When you say goodnight. End the day with a devotion, touch, or words of gratitude for each other.<\/p>\n<p>Easy to do and I like this. Give it a try and tell me how it goes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been through years of relationship training. During those years, some ideas seem like good ones, others not so much. At a recent seminar I attended, I liked this idea and thought I would pass it on. The leader of the seminar, Dr. Gary Brainerd, suggested this simple strategy. Take four minutes, four times a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[913],"tags":[545,128,941,1420,1419,125,53],"class_list":["post-2758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-couple-relationships","tag-couple-therapy","tag-couples","tag-couples-communication","tag-happy-relationship","tag-improve-your-relationship","tag-marriage","tag-relationships"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Four Minutes, Four Times a Day to Improve Your Relationship<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/06\/four-minutes-four-times-a-day-to-improve-your-relationship.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Four Minutes, Four Times a Day to Improve Your Relationship\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;ve been through years of relationship training. During those years, some ideas seem like good ones, others not so much. At a recent seminar I attended, I liked this idea and thought I would pass it on. The leader of the seminar, Dr. Gary Brainerd, suggested this simple strategy. Take four minutes, four times a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/06\/four-minutes-four-times-a-day-to-improve-your-relationship.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-19T12:00:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-06-11T21:59:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2012\/06\/ID-10076900-198x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Four Minutes, Four Times a Day to Improve Your Relationship","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2012\/06\/four-minutes-four-times-a-day-to-improve-your-relationship.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Four Minutes, Four Times a Day to Improve Your Relationship","og_description":"I&#8217;ve been through years of relationship training. During those years, some ideas seem like good ones, others not so much. At a recent seminar I attended, I liked this idea and thought I would pass it on. The leader of the seminar, Dr. Gary Brainerd, suggested this simple strategy. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2758"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2767,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758\/revisions\/2767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}