Many of us want to get a reasonable explanation for everything: mysterious phenomena, actions and even feelings. Scientists help to understand this. For example, they have scientifically substantiated some statements that affect the most beautiful of human feelings - love.
1. Love at first sight exists
Professor Stephanie Ortigue knows more about love than anyone else. Together with her colleagues at Syracuse University in New York State, she conducted a series of experiments to study the effect of love experiences on the structures of the brain. The results were so impressive that she decided to share them with the whole world. This is how her book, The Neuroimaging of Love, was born, in which the young scientist practically sorted out all the mechanisms that take place in the bodies of lovers. So, for example, all lovers in the blood have a significantly increased content of a special protein, the so-called nerve growth factor (NGF). It is he who is responsible for love at first sight. Moreover, the very process of its emergence, according to the study, takes only five seconds,therefore, it often simply does not have time to be fixed by a person. This is how it turns out that the love processes in the body have already started, and the person himself does not know this yet.
2. Love lives for three years
And this is not a quirk of the French writer Frederic Beigbeder, who wrote the book of the same name. This statement has a completely logical explanation, and not even logical, but biological. Three years - it was this period that guaranteed the participation of the father in the first years of the child's life and his mother with our ancient ancestors. In part, perhaps, this is where the three-year maternity leave originated.
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3. Love blinds
But the German researcher Andreas Bartel came to the conclusion that love is blind in the truest sense of the word. In the brain of a person in love, the zones responsible for making rational and deliberate decisions are simply fast asleep. This "blind" state can last from several months to three years. This is simply explained - if we immediately noticed all the shortcomings of a partner, we would enter into a serious relationship with such extreme caution that the continuation of the human race would be completely threatened.
4. Love is drug addiction
If you make a tomography of a person in love and a drug addict, then the results of the images will have a lot in common. For example, in lovers, two brain regions are simultaneously active, which are responsible for the so-called "reward system". This is due to increased levels of dopamine, a hormone that induces feelings of pleasure. Likewise, only cocaine acts on the human brain.
5. Love can be "cured"
As a result of the experiment, scientists have found that if a mouse is given a high dose of serotonin, it will reject its permanent partner and begin to mate with everyone. The thing is that serotonin significantly reduces the level of dopamine, and at the same time "kills" love attachment (but not sexual desire). By the way, the level of serotonin increases significantly while taking various antidepressants.
6. Unhappy love leads to depression
What processes take place in the body of a person who is unhappy in love? In his suffering, man goes through two stages. At first, unrequited love raises the level of dopamine - the feeling of love is exacerbated so much that at the same time a period of blind rage, jealousy and aggression sets in. Threats or desperate attempts to force the object of suffering into oneself are often used. This stage is rich in emotions and experiences, but not so durable, and sooner or later it is replaced by the next stage - the level of dopamine drops sharply, a person develops apathy, followed by depression, but it also passes over time.
7. Men love with their eyes, and women love with their ears
During the stage of acute love in men, the part of the brain responsible for vision is activated. And for women - the area responsible for hearing. That is why a man in love remembers what his lady of the heart was wearing on the first date, and a woman always remembers all the promises made by men in a fit of love lyrics.
8. Not everyone knows how to love
Have you met people who claim that they have never loved in their life? Perhaps they simply did not meet a worthy object of adoration. But there is a possibility that they suffer from a rare disease - hypopituitarism, which simply does not allow a person to feel all the emotions associated with falling in love.
9. Falling in love in an extreme situation is easiest
It would seem that in extreme situations there is no place for love - you have to be afraid, save yourself, survive and fight. But it is precisely such terrible conditions that are fertile ground for the birth of a great and bright feeling. The fact is that in such a situation, our body produces adrenaline, and the brain perceives it not only as a stress hormone, but also as a love hormone. We are worried, the pulse goes off scale, there is not enough breath - in the same way a desperately in love feels. And if at such a moment a worthy representative of the opposite sex is nearby, then we are ready to immediately throw ourselves into his arms.
Tatiana Pankova, Psychologist