Falling in love can feel amazing. It’s a beautiful feeling that we all long for and appreciate. While Hollywood might have us believe love is magical, psychologists have found that love is more complicated than we think.
In this article, we’ll look at some of the most fascinating psychological facts about love and attraction.
Now let’s take a look at –
10 psychological facts about love that you may not have known:
- Love is complicated
What you think is love magic is a mixture of lust, attraction, and attachment, which leads to different feelings from pleasure to pain.
According to research by anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen regulate our sex drive to motivate us to reproduce more often.
The hormones serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline that you are attracted to regulate reward behavior in the brain, making us feel joyful and aroused.
Brain chemicals or neuropeptides – oxytocin and vasopressin – regulate the bonding and attachment we share with another person.
Lust initiates the mating process, gravity helps us choose a suitable mating partner, and attachment enables us to maintain lasting relationships with a reproductive partner to complete parental duties. This is a recipe for love!
- Love can reduce appetite
Are butterflies in your stomach making eating difficult? It is a psychological fact that you do not feel hungry when you are in love. During the attraction phase, the happiness hormone dopamine, the love hormone oxytocin, and the stress hormone are secreted in the brain at high levels.
These chemicals suppress our appetite by making us feel irritable and cranky. Not only does it make you feel less hungry, but it can also lead to weight loss and insomnia. This is why you cannot eat or sleep when you are in love.
- Love is an addiction
Research has found that romantic love can be a natural and often positive addiction. Primary social attachment, attraction, and love-related behaviors are found in a range of addictive drives.
A 2016 study by Dr. Helen Fisher found that symptoms of the early stages of intense romantic love—euphoria, craving, tolerance, dependence, withdrawal, and relapse—are similar to symptoms of drug addiction and behavior.
Some researchers believe that romantic love is similar to drug addiction. Fortunately, the symptoms disappear as the love affair progresses.
Also read, The History of Valentine’s Day: Why Is Valentine’s Day Celebrated
- Being loved is a real thing
Are you unable to act normally when you miss your partner? You just might be smitten with love. Falling in love can increase levels of the stress hormone cortisol which can make us feel sick by suppressing our immune function.
Studies show that couples can affect each other’s mental and physical health and that one partner’s health problems can affect the other. According to a 2010 study, relationships can “actually influence mental health, health behavior, physical health, and mortality risk.”
- Love is a pain reliever
Did you know that intense feelings of love can help relieve pain? Although the explanation is a bit complicated, feelings of love can either increase or decrease our perception of pain depending on the individual psychological structure and emotional regulation. A 2017 study explains that love is linked to the functional connectivity of the brain and helps modulate pain.
Studies also show that viewing pictures of a romantic partner can also help relieve pain as the process is linked to neural activations in reward processing centers.
- Love hurts
Sadness is a real feeling and is known medically as “broken heart” syndrome, stress cardiomyopathy, or takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TCM). It is a short-term cardiac condition that arises in response to an intense physical or emotional experience that causes reversible heart dysfunction. When your heart breaks, the pumping chamber of your heart changes its structure which affects its ability to circulate blood effectively. Studies show that this condition is widely seen in young men and women along with older, postmenopausal women.
Recent research has also found that romantic and sexual activities are also linked to anxiety, depression, externalizing behaviors, eating disorders, poor treatment outcomes, and suicidal tendencies.
- Love makes us silly
Do you find yourself doing things for your crush that you would never have done? Well, love makes us do stupid and embarrassing things. Studies have found that we tend to display selective defects when making decisions about love because such feelings are linked to the activation of the frontal islet in the brain.
Experimental evidence also suggests that high emotional arousal, such as falling in love, can increase impulsive decision-making and reduce rational behavior, leading to some embarrassing, unfortunate, and poor decisions in a new relationship.
- Love enhances your well-being
Love makes us happier. Studies have found that romantic relationships are closely related to our general happiness, well-being, and the absence of symptoms of the disease. Research shows that relationship satisfaction can moderate our health and happiness.
Love also motivates us to pursue self-development goals and new interests, and develop personality traits that are most suitable for our partner. One study also found that beginning a relationship can lead to increased self-esteem; However, separation can lower our self-esteem.
- Love can last forever
Although the “honeymoon phase” of a relationship is thought to be the most exciting phase, you can still be crazy about your partner even after decades of being together. Studies have found that couples who have been married for more than two decades have the same level of dopamine-related activity in the brain as couples in a new relationship. The longer the relationship, the more the connection will grow.
Studies show that the state of love is “somewhat stable” because long-term relationships can maintain reward value and involve brain systems involved in attachment and pair bonding.
Love happens in the brain more than it does in the heart.
Also read, 13 Signs They Are Into You Too
Here are some of the most interesting psychological facts about love and attraction –
Research shows that it only takes about one-fifth of a second to fall in love.
Falling in love suppresses negative emotions and our ability to criticize our partner, making us “blind in love.”
The hormone adrenaline causes “butterflies in the stomach” feelings by stimulating our fight-or-flight response when we are in love.
Couples’ heart rates start to sync up when they’re in a loving relationship.
Romantic partners tend to perceive their relationship in a positive light, known as a positive illusion, which reduces the risk of separation.
We are more likely to be attracted to people who have a similar level of physical attractiveness or who are equally desirable socially.
Attractiveness isn’t just about physical appearance, but also about body odor and a person’s voice.
A loving reminder promotes creative thinking while a sex reminder stimulates concrete and analytical thinking.
We value an attractive face more than an attractive body when looking for a partner for a long-term relationship.
Being grateful towards our partners can improve positive feelings towards them and improve our relationship.
Now you know about the psychology of love and attraction.
Although love originates in the brain, it is nourished in our hearts and sustained by constant effort.
So be sure to express your love to your partner and enjoy the blessings of a healthy and loving relationship for years to come.
