The more we learn about how our brains work, the more it seems we are programmed for love as much as we are pre-programmed to love chocolate or breathe.
It turns out love truly is a chemical reaction we can study by using MRI machines. Those in love display an interesting interaction between hormones and neurotransmitters in their brains.
Four hormones – dopamine, norepinephrine, oxytocin, and serotonin are critical to the love reaction, but various other chemicals cause interactions still largely unknown, data suggests.
So far research has shown that dopamine makes you focus on your beloved and desire more time with them. It is critical to your brain’s reward circuitry. Dopamine causes your brain to seek out highly pleasurable experiences, so high levels of dopamine in your brain make you more susceptible to falling in love.
Just about anything that gives you pleasure will elevate dopamine activity in your brain, even eating chocolates. See how we have become an obese country with fattening foods everywhere and so easily available? It seems delicious dopamine-producing foods are much easier to come by than love!
Dr. Helen Fisher, a primary love researcher and author of Why We Love: the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, is now convinced that love is a foundation stone of human social life. Her research results changed her thinking about the essence of romantic love. She has come to see love “as a fundamental human drive.”
Like the craving for food and water and the maternal instinct, love is a physiological need, a profound urge to court and win a particular partner. And when love is scorned, all sorts of bad things may follow; depression, stalking, homicide and even sometimes suicide.
Would you like to learn how to get back to feeling good about love, even if you have been scorned? This most basic human need changes through time, but it is possible to feel positive about finding love again!
Learn more about forgiving yourself and trusting in your ability to attract the right person. Will you trust your intuition to find the right one this time?
It turns out love truly is a chemical reaction we can study by using MRI machines. Those in love display an interesting interaction between hormones and neurotransmitters in their brains.