Looking for a way to rediscover your love tonic? Here are 13 ways to know if you are truly in love.
*Photo used for illustrative purpose*
Can't get that girl or guy out of your head? Daydreaming about the
person when you should be working? Imagining your futures together?
These dizzying thoughts may be signs of love.
In fact, scientists have pinned down exactly what it means to "fall
in love." Researchers have found that an in-love brain looks very
different from one experiencing mere lust, and it's also unlike a brain
of someone in a long-term, committed relationship. Studies led by Helen
Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and one of the leading
experts on the biological basis of love, have revealed that the brain's
"in love" phase is a unique and well-defined period of time, and there
are 13 telltale signs that you're in it.
This one's special
When you're in love, you begin to think your beloved is unique. The
belief is coupled with an inability to feel romantic passion for anyone
else. Fisher and her colleagues believe this single-mindedness results
from elevated levels of central dopamine — a chemical involved in
attention and focus — in your brain.
She's perfect
People who are truly in love tend to focus on the positive
qualities of their beloved, while overlooking his or her negative
traits. They also focus on trivial events and objects that remind them
of their loved one, daydreaming about these precious little moments and
mementos. This focused attention is also thought to result from elevated
levels of central dopamine, as well as a spike in central
norepinephrine, a chemical associated with increased memory in the
presence of new stimuli.
I'm a wreck!
As is well known, falling in love often leads to emotional and
physiological instability. You bounce between exhilaration, euphoria,
increased energy, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, trembling, a racing
heart and accelerated breathing, as well as anxiety, panic and feelings
of despair when your relationship suffers even the smallest setback.
These mood swings parallel the behavior of drug addicts. And indeed,
when in-love people are shown pictures of their loved ones, it fires up
the same regions of the brain that activate when a drug addict takes a
hit. Being in love, researchers say, is a form of addiction.
Adversity made us closer
Going through some sort of adversity with another person tends to
intensify romantic attraction. Central dopamine may be responsible for
this reaction, too, because research shows that when a reward is
delayed, dopamine-producing neurons in the mid-brain region become more
productive.
I'm obsessed with him
People who are in love report that they spend, on average, more
than 85 percent of their waking hours musing over their "love object,"
according to Fisher. Intrusive thinking, as this form of obsessive
behavior is called, may result from decreased levels of central
serotonin in the brain, a condition that has been associated with
obsessive behavior previously.
I wish we could be together all the time
People in love regularly exhibit signs of emotional dependency on
their relationship, including possessiveness, jealousy, fear of
rejection, and separation anxiety. For instance, Fisher and her
colleagues looked at the brains of individuals viewing photos of a
rejected loved one, or someone they were still in love with after being
rejected by that person. The functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) showed activation in several brain areas, including forebrain
areas like the cingulate gyrus that have been shown to play a role in
cocaine cravings. "Activation of areas involved in cocaine addiction may
help explain the obsessive behaviors associated with rejection in
love," the researchers wrote in 2010 in the Journal of Neurophysiology.
I hope we stay together forever
They also long for emotional union with their beloved, seeking out
ways to get closer and day-dreaming about their future together.
Another love expert, Lucy Brown, a neuroscientist at the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in New York, says this drive to be with
another person is sort of like our drive toward water and other things
we need to survive.
"Functional MRI studies show that primitive neural systems
underlying drive, reward recognition and euphoria are active in almost
everyone when they look at the face of their beloved and think loving
thoughts. This puts romantic love in the company of survival systems,
like those that make us hungry or thirsty," Brown told Live Science in 2011.
"I think of romantic love as part of the human reproductive strategy.
It helps us form pair-bonds, which help us survive. We were built to
experience the magic of love and to be driven toward another."
I'd do anything for her
People who are in love generally feel a powerful sense of empathy
toward their beloved, feeling the other person's pain as their own and
being willing to sacrifice anything for the other person.
Would he like this outfit?
Falling in love is marked by a tendency to reorder your daily
priorities and/or change your clothing, mannerisms, habits or values so
that they better align with those of your beloved.
Even so, being yourself may be your best bet: In another of
Fisher's studies, presented in 2013 at the "Being Human" conference, she
found that people are attracted to their opposites, at least their
"brain-chemical" opposites. For instance, her research found that people
with so-called testosterone-dominant personalities (highly analytical,
competitive and emotionally contained) were often drawn to mates with
personalities linked to high estrogen and oxytocin levels — these
individuals tended to be "empathetic, nurturing, trusting and prosocial, and introspective, seeking meaning and identity," Fisher said in 2013.
Can we be exclusive?
Those who are deeply in love typically experience sexual desire for
their beloved, but there are strong emotional strings attached: The
longing for sex is coupled with possessiveness, a desire for sexual
exclusivity, and extreme jealousy when the partner is suspected of
infidelity. This possessiveness is thought to have evolved so that an
in-love person will compel his or her partner to spurn other suitors,
thereby insuring that the couple's courtship is not interrupted until
conception has occurred.
It's not about sex
While the desire for sexual union is important to people in love,
the craving for emotional union takes precedence. A study found that 64
percent of people in love (the same percentage for both sexes) disagreed
with the statement, "Sex is the most important part of my relationship
with [my partner]."
I feel out of control
Fisher and her colleagues found that individuals who report being
"in love" commonly say their passion is involuntary and uncontrollable.
For her 1979 book "Love and Limerence," the late psychologist
Dorothy Tennov asked 400 men and women in Connecticut to respond to 200
statements on romantic love. Many participants expressed feelings of
helplessness, saying their obsession was irrational and involuntary.
According to Fisher, one participant, a business executive in his early
50s wrote this about an office crush, "I am advancing toward the thesis
that this attraction for Emily is a kind of biological, instinct-like
action that is not under voluntary or logical control. ... It directs
me. I try desperately to argue with it, to limit its influence, to
channel it (into sex, for example), to deny it, to enjoy it, and, yes,
dammit, to make her respond! Even though I know that Emily and I have
absolutely no chance of making a life together, the thought of her is an
obsession," Fisher reported in 2016 online in Nautilus.
The spark is gone
Unfortunately, being in love usually doesn't last forever. It's an
impermanent state that either evolves into a long-term, codependent
relationship that psychologists call "attachment," or it dissipates, and
the relationship dissolves. If there are physical or social barriers
inhibiting partners from seeing one another regularly — for example, if
the relationship is long-distance — then the "in love" phase generally
lasts longer than it would otherwise.
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