Can prolonged eye contact really make couples feel closer?

In January, business professor and happiness researcher Arthur C Brooks appeared on the Modern Wisdom podcast to offer tips on routines, and for couples he suggested a nightly ritual: spend five minutes holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. The idea echoed a 2015 New York Times essay by Mandy Len Catron, who wrote about a study involving 36 personal questions followed by four minutes of eye contact; Catron said she fell in love after trying the exercise.

Dr Arthur Aron later noted that the four minutes of staring wasn’t part of the original research but appeared in a footnote. Many people, myself included, find prolonged eye contact uncomfortable. Dr Susan J O’Grady says, "Eye contact activates the brain’s social and emotional circuitry almost immediately," and that the nervous system can shift into states of arousal — "Fear, anticipation or excitement." Those reactions help explain why sustained gaze can feel overwhelming, and why it may not seem ideal right before sleep.

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