Couples are known to often share the same interests, finish each other sentences and laugh at the same jokes, but a new study has claimed that their hearts could also be beating at the same rhythm.

The team from the University of California, Davis, discovered this while they were studying the physical effects of being in a relationship.

Study leader Professor Emilio Ferrer, said that her team had seen a lot of research that one person in a relationship could experience what the other person is experiencing emotionally, but their study showed that they also shared experiences at a physiological level, the Daily Mail reported.

Her team conducted a series of experiments on 32 straight couples, who were connected to heart rate and respiration monitors.

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Spending money on holidays can make us happier than buying material goods, say psychologists.

Splashing out on experiences leads to memories we can share for a long time, while possessions such as clothing, gadgets or jewellery are unlikely to “prompt storytelling” in the same way, a study found.

Experiments by psychologists at Cornell University in New York State found that people scored higher satisfaction from experiences because they were more likely to share them with others.

Researchers believe “reliving” the experience helps us feel more connected to others and enhances our happiness, the Daily Express reported.

Lead author Amit Kumar told the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in New Orleans that a famous line from the 1942 film Casablanca could help explain the results – “A once-cherished Walkman is now obsolete, but, as Humphrey Bogart once told Ingrid Bergman, ‘We’ll always have Paris’.

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Staring into space at their workplace could help employees become more creative and even help the business, psychologists have claimed.

Two studies – carried out by Dr Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman at the University of Central Lancashire – explored the effects of “passive” boredom, like staring into space during meetings, the Daily Mail reported.

In the first study, 40 volunteers were asked to do a boring task, where they copied numbers out of a telephone directory for 15 minutes.

The people were then told to complete another work, which asked them to come up with different uses for a pair of polystyrene cups, giving them a chance to showcase their creativity.

It turned out that the people who did the boring work were more creative than a control group of 40, who had just been asked to come up with uses.

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Be happy – it seems to be good for your heart.

Scientists have long known that Type A personalities and people who are chronically angry, anxious or depressed have a higher risk of heart attacks.

Now a Harvard review of the flip side of that psychology concludes that being upbeat and optimistic just may help protect against heart disease.

Rather than focusing only on how to lessen heart risks, `it might also be useful to focus on how we might bolster the positive side of things,` said lead researcher Julia Boehm of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Happiness is key to well-being

Boehm reviewed dozens of studies examining a positive outlook – as determined by various psychological measurements – on heart health. Optimism in particular seems key, as a number of studies found the most optimistic people had half the risk of a first heart attack when compared to the least optimistic, Boehm said.

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