We don’t need research to tell us that good relationships contribute to our well-being. Nonetheless, studies back it up: Having healthy and loving relationships means that we live longer, recover from illness quicker, give our immune systems a boost, have lower blood pressure, are more physically fit, enjoy better heart health and even feel less pain. Love makes the heart swoon, the world go round and we hope that it will fulfill the human needs to be understood, respected, valued and cared for. But how is it we express love to our closest ones?

That’s what Love Languages are all about. If you’re unfamiliar with this term, the theory of Love Languages was introduced by American author and pastor Gary Chapman, who spoke about 5 main ways in which we express love to another.

Here is a brief description of each kind of love language:

• Words of Affirmation: This is the love language about expressing love to one’s partner through words. This includes words of appreciation, encouragement, compliments, staying in touch when you’re apart and other verbal ways to show you care. Saying words like “I love you”, “I miss you” or “I’m thinking about you” go a long way.
• Physical Touch: As you can probably guess from its name, this love language is less verbose and relies on communicating love primarily through touch. This can range from a warm hug or a pat on the shoulder to handholding and other forms of physical intimacy.
• Quality Time: This love language involves spending time with loved ones to express the depth of their love. Nothing shows you care like uninterrupted time and attention. People with this love language enjoy conversations and shared activities with their partner.
• Receiving Gifts: This love language is all about showing love through tokens of appreciation, whether in the form of a handwritten note, surprising your partner with food or flowers, hobby materials you know your partner will love or something else. The gift doesn’t have to be grand – it’s the gesture that matters.
• Acts of Service: This love language involves a great deal of paying attention and thoughtfulness. Different from giving traditional gifts, people with this love language show that they care through little actions, such as when they have tea ready for their partner when they wake up, or by doing the chores they know their partner doesn’t enjoy doing.

A single individual can have multiple love languages. In other words, you could love spending quality time with your loved one and also value giving and receiving of gifts, but one’s primary love language is generally the one that connects most to what underlying emotional need they value most or rely on their partner to fulfill: words, touch, attention, appreciation, or actions.

What does this have to do with your relationship?

Well, the importance of identifying your own and your partner’s love language should not be mistaken as some metric of compatibility between partners. In fact, research shows that couples whose love languages were not the same as each other’s had relationships that were just as good as those couples who shared the same love language.

Instead, the real value in knowing your love language is using it to understand your own needs and your partner’s needs better and act accordingly. Paying attention to your partner’s needs as well as recognizing your own could go a long way in figuring out what may be missing in the relationship or why you feel angry when your partner doesn’t come home with gifts or forgets to hug you good morning or good night. Better understanding among partners invariably results in greater long-term relationship satisfaction.

No matter what your love language is, remember that love is a universal language all on its own. Whether it’s a partner, family member, friend or pet, having someone to give and receive and express a love language to is the most fulfilling thing.