Why is true love so powerful?

livescience.com - What Falling in Love Does to the Brain - Live Science

Why is it called making out?

The sexual connotations of the phrase "make out" appear to have developed in the 1930s and '40s from the phrase's other meaning: "to succeed"....

Last updated Apr 14, 2021

Does an empty house cost more to heat?

“It is more economical to leave the heating and cooling system off in an unoccupied building,” said Darin Nutter, professor and department head of...

Last updated Apr 30, 2020

Do you really know who the “One” is? Your true Soulmate?

Promotion

Falling in love can wreak havoc on your body. Your heart races, your tummy gets tied up in knots, and you're on an emotional roller coaster, feeling deliriously happy one minute and anxious and desperate the next.

Research shows that these intense, romantic feelings come from the brain.

In one small study, researchers looked at magnetic resonance images of the brains of 10 women and seven men who claimed to be deeply in love. The length of their relationships ranged from one month to less than two years. Participants were shown photographs of their beloved, and photos of a similar-looking person. The brains of the smitten participants reacted to photos of their sweethearts, producing emotional responses in the same parts of the brain normally involved with motivation and reward. "Intense passionate love uses the same system in the brain that gets activated when a person is addicted to drugs," said study co-author Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In other words, you start to crave the person you're in love with like a drug.

Romantic love is a primitive response

Experts have said that romantic love is one of the most powerful emotions a person can have. Humans' brains have been wired to choose a mate, and we humans become motivated to win over that mate, sometimes going to extremes to get their attention and affection. "You can feel happy when you're in love, but you can also feel anxious," said Aron's co-author, Lucy Brown, a neuroscientist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. "The other person becomes a goal in life," essentially, a prize. Brown said that the reward part of the brain, also dubbed the pleasure center, is an essential part of the brain needed to survive.

"It helps us recognize when something feels good," she said.

The drive to feel good around your intended mate may even be more powerful than the drive for sex, Brown said.

Intense romantic love could fade away

But once you've won over your love, does the feeling fade away?

Not completely, Aron said. In another study, he and his colleagues looked at MRI scans of 10 women and seven men who were married for an average of 21 years and claimed they were still intensively in love with their partners. The researchers found that in each of these long-term lovers, brain regions were also activated when they looked at photos of their partners. Long-term love showed activity in the regions linked with attachment and liking a reward. "For most people, the standard pattern is a gradual decline of passionate love, but a growth in bonding," Aron said. That bonding allows for the partners to stay together long enough to have and raise children.

"Most mammals don't raise children together, but humans do," he said.

But the brain studies did suggest that love changes over time, Aron said. "As long as love remains, we get used to the relationship, and we're not afraid our partner will leave us, so we're not as focused on the craving," he said. Pass it on: Brain, not the heart, plays a major role in falling in love. This story was provided by MyHealthNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. Find us on Facebook.

How do you tell if he likes you but is scared?

The following are signs a man may be interested in you but feels scared. He Is Hesitant. ... He Is Afraid Of Rejection. ... He Went Through A...

Last updated Mar 14, 2019

What type of drawing is the hardest?

For those who do not practice painting, hyper-realism and photo-realism are often considered the most difficult due to the wow factor. Oct 28, 2022

Last updated Sep 17, 2018

Promotion

What is a secret word for love?

paramour paramour Add to list Share. A paramour is a lover, and often a secret one you're not married to. So it's best not to kiss and make eyes at your paramour in public, unless you want to be the center of a lot of gossip.

vocabulary.com - Paramour - Definition, Meaning & Synonyms - Vocabulary.com

paramour

A paramour is a lover, and often a secret one you're not married to. So it's best not to kiss and make eyes at your paramour in public, unless you want to be the center of a lot of gossip. The noun paramour evolved from the French phrase par amour, meaning “passionately” or “with desire.” If you break it down, you get par, meaning "by," and amour, the French word for love. Once upon a time, women used this word to describe Christ, and men would use it to refer to the Virgin Mary. But eventually, paramour shed its religious connotations and came to mean “darling” or “sweetheart,” and later “mistress” or “clandestine lover.”

How do eyes show love?

Your eyes and autonomic nervous system play an intricate role in the expression of love. Prolonged eye contact has been thought to release...

Last updated Jun 8, 2019

Will God bring someone back into your life?

In God's appointed time, He can bring two persons back together. And the second time around, their love will be more beautiful. Ecclesiastes...

Last updated Apr 18, 2021

Promotion

Why marriage is important for a girl?

The importance of a wedding for a woman is that it will shield her from unreliable and precarious existence once they are with her partner, who...

Last updated Jun 4, 2020

Promotion

What is the strongest single bond?

The bond is labeled as "the strongest in organic chemistry," because fluorine forms the strongest single bond to carbon. Carbon–fluorine bonds can...

Last updated Jan 2, 2018