The Weird Sign You're Perfect For Each Other

We guarantee you'll be thinking about this on your next date

Forget a mutual love of How I Met Your Mother or your eerily similar workout playlists; new research suggests that there's a better way to determine if you're soul mates, and it has to do with the way you speak. People who use the same function words—like pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and quantifiers—are more likely to couple up and stay together, according to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science.

Researchers at Texas Tech University had a hunch that speech was related to romance (dirty talk aside), so they conducted two studies on language style matching (LSM). LSM measures how much two people in a conversation subtly match each other's speaking or writing style, focusing on words like "I," "she," "those," "in," "about," "tons," "never," "very," "quite," "while," "because," and "can," among others. And even though we hardly ever realize we're saying words like these, researchers say they reveal a lot about our personalities. 

For the first study, the researchers analyzed speed dates between 40 men and 40 women. Surprisingly, the people who used similar function words were more likely to report being into each other at the end of the date. In the second study, researchers analyzed instant message conversations between 86 couples, looking again at language patterns. They asked about relationship satisfaction on the first day, then checked in three months later to see if the couple had lasted. And get this: Couples who used more similar function words were about twice as likely to be together three months later.

MORE: The 3 Traits That Tell You the Most About a Potential Love Interest 

Shockingly, LSM was a better predictor of romantic interest and relationship stability than self-reports. Even if someone thought they meshed with a date or were convinced they'd stick with their partner forever, the LSM knew better. 

MORE: 13 Things You Learn About Dating By the Time You're 30 

Obviously, this doesn't mean that you should start changing up your lingo during your next OkCupid date—you would probably sound ridiculous. (What are you going to do, keep saying "quite" for the rest of your life when you never used to?) But the researchers suggest we might already be subconsciously changing our speaking patterns to match someone else's when we're really engaged in the conversation, which could explain why it's so darn good at predicting a bond. Sure, it's a weird way to see if you might be a match—but it's definitely something to look out for on your next date. 

MORE: The Dating Behavior That 95 Percent of People Say Is a Major Turn-off  

3 Ultra-Effective Exercise Machines You're Not Using, But Should Be

Don't let these babies go unnoticed

It’s easy to get into a gym routine and just bust in, do your thing, and leave. We all do it. (Especially in this nasty cold weather: have you SEEN the 10 stages of running when it's freezing outside? Yeah.) But in case you haven’t noticed, the gym is filllled with cool machines—and chances are, you haven’t tried all of them out yet. Translation? One of them could be your new gym BFF and you simply haven’t given it to the time of day it deserves. So we asked Greg Justice, an exercise physiologist at AYC Health & Fitness in Kansas City, for the top three machines he notices that people don’t use enough—but really, really should. Try at least one of them next time you go! 

The Stair Climber
Yeah, yeah, it may or may not elicit Jane Fonda flashbacks. But even though you practically never see anyone on the thing, it’s a winner and it deserves to make a comeback. You burn more calories using the stair climber than walking on the treadmill at the same pace, explains Justice, because you’re involving more muscles, like your hamstrings and your glutes.

The Rowing Machine
Like the stair climber, this machine tends to just sit in most fitness centers, gathering dust—but it’s another overlooked gym gem! That’s because it works so many muscles groups at one time—your quads, hamstrings, glutes, back, shoulders, and core—which is really unusual for most cardio equipment. To maximize your calorie torch, check out these tips for how to burn more calories while rowing.

Suspension Trainers, like the TRX
Those are those things that look like belts that hang down from a pole and you swing in them…you follow? Justice says that they’re underused, probably because they look so innocent—people think, “It’s just a belt; how much can it really help?” A lot. The cool thing about them is that you control the resistance just by adjusting your body position. And also, they enable you to get a fast, effective, total-body workout in a short amount of time. Win! Check out this intense TRX Total Body Workout to get an idea for how to use them.

One caveat, of course: Be careful not to go trying every machine at the gym, though—some really do do more harm than good, like these 10 exercise machines to avoid. 

Another Reason You're Not Getting Enough Sleep

Who knew that THIS could mess with your bedtime

Well, this is unfair: Your gender may affect how well you sleep, according to a new study published in the journal Sleep Medicine.

For the study, researchers from the U.K. surveyed 8,480 people about their sleep habits—like when they fell asleep, how long they slept for, and if they experienced any difficulties drifting off. The results? Women slept for 11 minutes less than men, on average. Female participants also reported having more trouble sleeping than their male counterparts.

MORE: 5 Foods That Are Keeping You Up At Night

What gives? While this study didn't analyze why women reported poorer sleep quality, previous studies have shown that women generally have more trouble sleeping than men, says lead study author Yue Leng, a Ph.D. student in the department of public health and primary care at the University of Cambridge. One reason might be that women feel more pressure to balance work and family, and the stress could disrupt their sleep patterns, says Leng.  

But fear not—we've got loads of awesome tips and tricks to sleep better tonight (and every other night after that).

MORE: Can Sex Help You Sleep Better?