THE SCIENCE OF LOVE

Love is an extremely powerful and complex emotional experience.

It changes everything, from our psychology and how we perceive the world, to our body chemistry and the quality of our relationships.

Love is a universal emotion (any of us can love), but it is not easy to explain what happens when we love What does it mean?

Artists and scientists have tried to depict, describe, or explain love. Moreover, each of us has our theory of love and its development. We all know for sure that love has a huge impact on our well-being and life satisfaction.

How does love affect our lives?

What is love(baby don't hurt me)?

Love is one of the universal emotions. It is characterized by strong affect, tenderness, and devoted behavior towards the object of our love. The presence of the person we love is enough and our feelings and joy grow incredibly quickly.

Sometimes our love is a short breath and the magic ends before we know it. Other times the flame burns slower and our commitment is more lasting. Some say their love is strong, dramatic, and oscillating, while for others the experience of love is rather calm.

Let's think about how we can explain these different experiences. Let's start at the most basic level: what happens to our brain when we experience love?

Experiencing romantic love involves many physiological changes for both men and women. We usually say that we fell in love, when in fact it is more accurate to say that we fell high love.

When we see or think about our love, our brains make us feel euphoric excitement by increasing levels of oxytocin, also called the love hormone. This is what makes us feel intense joy and happiness in the presence of our loved ones. It is important to remember that oxytocin is the basis of many social bonds - friendships, partnerships, and, the strongest of them all, a mother's love for her child.

The second component of the physiology of love is dopamine, a neurotransmitter that can be associated with pleasure and reward. Thanks to dopamine, when we fall in love, we are filled with high energy and positive emotions.

And this is the way it works. If you text your best friend "Hi, how are you?" and he responds to you, you can smile, laugh, and enjoy the text exchange that may follow. But when it comes to the person you love, and if they react the same way, you feel different - you experience excitement, warmth, and contentment. This seemingly identical answer has a different reception depending on who we get it from. If it's anyone we like, but now love romantically, it seems less satisfying. To put it simply, it doesn't cause our dopamine neurons to have a party.

Of course, the people we like are also important to us, but our hearts beat faster only for those we love.

This raises another important question: What is the difference between loving and liking?

Sometimes we experience appreciation for another person. We may be excited and inspired during a conversation, we want to stay in the company of such a person a little longer or we miss very much, e.g. when this person moves to another country. However, this feeling of sympathy still lacks quality and depth in being in love.

Based on the differences between liking and loving, psychologist Zig Ruby invented three essential elements of love:

1. The feeling of absorption and exclusivity;

2. Willingness to help;

3. Codependency and shared needs.

These three elements make loving your best friend different from loving your partner. However, it is assumed that we like also the person we love.

As with crush, there is another phenomenon that is an important (but not defining) element of romantic love that is often confused with love itself -sexual attraction.

One of the studies was conducted that analyzed the similarities and differences between love and sexual desire. It showed that both conditions trigger activity in the same brain regions associated with motivation, emotion, and imagination. While sexual desire itself can quickly become deflated, love also appears to be built on the activity of these brain circuits.

Sexual attraction and love share some brain networks, but they are different feelings, not only in terms of experience but also in terms of neuroanatomy. Sexual attraction is an automatic, biological drive, while love is a cultural, highly developed concept.

At the chemical level, sexual attraction increases the levels of sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, but also dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.

The experience of love goes several steps further and also involves an increase in oxytocin and vasopressin, which is why we feel deeply attached to the person we love.

It takes very little for our brain chemistry to start creating its magic. According to research in 2010, it only takes one-fifth of a second for the twelve areas of the brain involved in the feeling of love to release chemicals that cause euphoria simultaneously.

Mixed with positive reinforcement (a positive response from the person we desire) and relationship development through experiencing the world together, this wild chemistry is what we build our long-term affection on.

In 1973, psychologist John Lee tried to compare different love styles in this model of love color wheel.

Just like the three primary colors - red, blue, and yellow, there are three basic styles of love: ludus, eros, and storage.

1. Ludus comes from the Greek word meaning game. People who love this way are not ready for serious commitment. They do intimacy and see love as entertaining.

2. Eros also comes from the Greek language and means eroticism and passion. This is how we love when we idealize someone. We love an ideal vision, an idealized image partially created in our head, and we are surprised, angry, or heartbroken when a partner does not fit this ideal.

3. Finally, Storge means a natural feeling, such as love between friends and family. This type of love is built gradually through shared interests and activities.

When combined, these primary styles can also produce secondary love styles:

4. Pragma: realistic and practical love representing the union of folk and storage

5. Mania: obsessive love that appears as a combination of eros and ludus.

6. Agape: selfless love embodied in the union of eros and storage.

Starting with brain chemistry, love permeates all aspects of our being. In addition to helping us connect with others, it also affects our physical health.

Love is also beneficial to our mental health. From early childhood, people close to us constantly influence our limbic system - a group of brain regions associated with emotions and emotional regulation.

Secure attachment to our caregivers and a stable sense of being loved and protected positively impact mental health, emotional regulation, and stress management.

This, in turn, continues into adulthood.

While stable self-esteem and self-love are essential precursors to mental health and a healthy relationship, this positive relationship also works in reverse.

People with healthy emotional well-being are more likely to enter into relationships. Having a committed, caring, strong romantic partnership is in turn associated with mental health benefits, such as reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety.

In the end, we are left with one more question to answer: Does love make us more satisfied in life?

Love and life satisfaction have an intricate relationship. On the one hand, people in romantic relationships report greater feelings of happiness and well-being, which makes sense because they are constantly experiencing oxytocin, dopamine, vasopressin, and adrenaline.

Loving each other provides strong support, a sense of belonging, and a shared purpose which are key ingredients for life satisfaction.

On the other hand, love based on negative emotions can drastically affect life satisfaction. Relationship conflicts, breakups, and unrequited love can lead to lower feelings of well-being and increased stress and anxiety.

The truth is that both types of love experiences are part of the journey. The high stakes are what make love so satisfying. Therefore, it is important to cultivate an open and mindful attitude towards love. Failures and heartbreaks can be valuable lessons that give us the opportunity to increase our life satisfaction as much as our love for each other.

There is no easy solution or quick magic pill.

Behind every happy, strong, healthy relationship there is hard (internal) work of mutual acceptance, learning from difficult patches, respecting each other's boundaries, accepting compromises, and most importantly, introducing lightness into your life.

One of the most brilliant literary minds, Antoine de Saint Exupery, said:

Love is not about staring at each other, but about looking outwards together in the same direction.