Love is the drug

[XLNC]

8 Crazy Things Love Does To Your Brain, According To Science
Love really is like a drug.
02/12/2016 05:32 pm ET
Carolyn GregoireSenior Health & Science Writer, The Huffington Post

Love can make you feel euphoric, foolish, happy, obsessed, distracted, passionate, exhausted and pretty much everything in between -- so it should come as little surprise that falling in love does quite a number on your brain.

When you fall in love with someone, a whole host of changes are taking place in your brain and body to create all that passion and euphoria, and of course the less desirable effects, too.

While you're enjoying some time with your significant other this Valentine's Day, take a moment to marvel at the science of love -- and to appreciate the incredible effect your partner has on your noggin!

Scroll down for eight crazy things that love does to the brain.

1. Falling in love causes a major hormone rush. When you first fall in love, you experience a rush of hormones to the brain -- including oxytocin, the "love hormone," the "pleasure hormone" dopamine, and sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone. Other hormones, like adrenaline, make the heart beat faster. This influx of hormones plays a major role in those intense feelings of fluttery excitement, attraction and euphoria.

2. Love can become an addiction. We all know that falling in love can lead to cravings and obsessive thoughts, and the desire to spend every moment with your partner. Sound like an addiction? That's because it is. Now, neuroscience research has shown that love quite literally is like a drug: Falling in love activates the same system in the brain as cocaine addiction.

"Romantic love is an obsession, it possesses you," Link is broken so has been taken down "You can't stop thinking about another human being... Romantic love is one of the most addictive substances on Earth."

3. Love activates the opioid system. Romantic love and attraction can activate the brain's opioid system -- that's right, like heroin and opioid pain killers -- which is the part of the brain involved in "liking" something. Scientists have suggested that this system may have evolved to help us choose the best mate by giving rise to rewarding feelings when we see that potential partner.

4. Love can make your serotonin take a nosedive. Research has associatedromantic love with low serotonin levels, which is also a central feature of obsessive-compulsive disorder. This could play a role in explaining the single-minded focus on the object of their affection that many lovers experience.

5. Love can zap your focus. Anyone who's been in love knows that it can be more than a little distracting, and now we understand why. Neuroscientists have linked passionate love with intense changes in emotion and attention, as well as reduced cognitive control -- meaning that you're less able to control your attention.

6. Love can strengthen your empathy and ability to process emotions. The type of love that's cultivated through the practice of loving-kindness meditation activates the brain's empathy and emotion-processing centers, while also reducing activity in brain areas associated with self-focused thought. Loving-kindness meditation also gets us in touch with our feelings by increasing gray matter volumein brain areas associated with emotion processing.

7. Different stages of love can change your brain activity differently. A study published last year in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that MRI scans could be used to accurately determine what stage of romantic love a person was in based on their brain activity. While falling in love activates the brain's reward center, breaking up decreases activity in the reward center, and also causes sharp decreases in activity and functional connectivity in a part of this center that's associated with expectation of rewards.

8. Love can get in your brain and stay there for life. A 2011 study found similar activity in certain brain regions among longtime, happily married couples and among couples who had recently fallen in love. The researchers suggest that these brain regions might provide clues as to how some couples stay deeply in love for decades.

The bottom line? Love can last.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/en...us_56bc8e50e4b08ffac123fd13?section=australia

Another VD and I'm still waiting for my fix.

 

[XLNC]

The Love Drug
02/13/2015 08:00 am ET | Updated Apr 15, 2015
Ruth Bettelheim, Ph.D.Psychotherapist; Executive/life coach

As Valentine's Day approaches, our thoughts turn to romance. Unfortunately, many of our cultural myths about love, from fairy tales to rom coms, paint a very distorted picture. In stories, love is a static reward -- you go out and find your prince or princess, overcome whatever obstacles the world throws in your way, and achieve a state of romantic happiness. But love is not the pot of gold waiting at the end of our quest, incarnated in a single perfect partner. Instead it's something we need with us every step of the way -- it energizes us, gives us courage, and guides us. But we are just beginning to understand how it works.

It turns out that all kinds of love -- for friends, family, and lovers -- are induced by similar neurochemical circuits in our brains. As Dr. Larry Young and Brian Alexander explain in The Chemistry Between Us, when these are activated, we're flooded with elation and the whole world seems brighter. Dr. Young suggests that over millennia, we evolved to be social animals. For that to happen, social attachments had to become immensely rewarding, to compensate for the difficulties such relationships also entail. Our bodies and brains evolved not just to find pleasure in being together long enough to reproduce, but to derive deep pleasure from being intensely engaged with each other over the long term. We are built to be filled with the well-being, exuberance, and joy that are derived from being in love -- and to suffer misery when love is absent.

Falling in love, or failing to do so, can literally transform us. It is, perhaps, the most powerful drug we know. I spoke with Dr. Young about patients of mine who had been invalids, largely confined to their homes, who overcame serious physical and mental anguish sufficiently to live full lives once they fell in love. He pointed out that some people who are repulsed by small children, infants, and their body products are similarly transformed by the surge of hormones that ensue upon the birth of a child; they fall in love and are energized, despite physical pain and exhaustion, and enjoy the very things that formerly disgusted them.

A more intense version of the neurochemical cascade that floods us during sexual orgasm usually floods parents when their child is born. But sometimes things go tragically awry. Postpartum depression (in both sexes) is a clear example. When the neurochemistry that induces falling in love with our infant fails to occur, things go badly for the whole family. Failure to bond can occur on the baby's side as well, due to inborn biological predispositions. Early deficits of parental love bonds can lead to lifelong epigenetic and neurochemical changes, as shown in animal studies and also in the horrifying natural experiment that occurred in the orphanages of Romania not so long ago, demonstrating that in the absence of reciprocated love there is rage or a void -- an emptiness and inability to value, connect with, or understand either themselves or others.

For most of us, fortunately, life's trials are more moderate, but we all thrive best when buoyed by loving connections and flounder when we lack them. While this may be obvious, what hasn't been discussed since Freud is the use of this natural miracle "drug cocktail" to alleviate mental and physical suffering. Being in love makes the vicissitudes of daily life, if not joyous, at least more bearable. But falling in love has not been systematically thought of or studied as a treatment to alleviate suffering, despite new evidence that stress, anxiety and physical pain are all substantially reduced by love.

Neither love, nor pharmacologic agents (which are essential to soothe our pains and cure diseases) alone, is enough. We need to integrate the analgesic, energizing, healing and transformative powers of love into our therapeutic efforts, and our daily lives. Before widespread use of antibiotics, doctors relied largely on the healing and comforting powers of tender loving care. Today, however, they are neither taught nor paid to dispense TLC. Worse, the intensity of contemporary life, with ever-increasing work hours and constant demands on our attention, leaves little time and energy for us to nurture our loved ones. That may be one reason the use of mental health professionals is increasing. They are the only people in our society who receive training in the administration of TLC.

Taking good care of ourselves is not just about exercise, nutrition, and an annual checkup. It requires that we meet our emotional needs by giving and getting a healthy amount of TLC. So next time your loved one has a cold, don't forget to give her warm soup and a warmer hug along with the aspirin -- it'll do more good than flowers on Valentine's Day.

 

[XLNC]

So Bryan was right.

 

[HappyPirate]

Luv is the Drug

Sucker Punch; -Love is the drug

 

[Happy2]

But you can get off this terrible downward spiral You don't have to be a addict

I was madly deeply for 28 yrs When she went to god l went cold Turkey and found I had enough stored up For I have absolutely no need of it I visit a girl every now and then and even on this Supposed Day Of Lurve it would be purely physical Nothing else And I am fairly well adjusted for a nutjob

And who stole My F****n roses from my home paddock Bloody love junkies again I suppose You should all be ashamed of yourselves
Bah Humbug

 

[Dallas]

I like your information XLNC, especially where you refer to children not bonding with their parents. My mother chose not to show affection to the boys as in not even hugs, because she believed it would make us soft. My thoughts on this years later is that it wasn't a choice but she is incapable of having any empathy, which is maybe why I have inadvertently over compensated in that area.

Love for me is like water to others. Most who have it on tap all their lives can't comprehend someone who's thirsty.

 

[Happy2]

That can be partially a generational thing to couldn't it Dallas ?
My father was late 90's when he passed Mum is pushing 95 Neither ever hugged the kids or the like But started to interact more once they became grandparents But I think their attitude was you're a man you got to be strong and all that

And what I can remember of my grand parents They had friends of many many years standing and yet I still remember Gran calling her friend Mrs... when they met down the street in Northampton

 

[Dallas]

You could be right H2, but my parents had zero empathy and they are very cold and distant and if it was their strategy to make the boys strong, it certainly didn't have the desired effect. My mother even went as far as trying to stop me from getting anything physical from other females as I was growing up, so no hugs from aunts, cousins and "definitely" no girl friends to the extent that I was sent to all boys schools and environments. I got my first hug when I was 11 and that was only because I told my mother that I was friends with a boy at school - which she heartily approved of, but it was actually his sister I was friends with, so I would get driven over there and was able to stay the night and got LOTS of hugs and kisses and cuddles from both her and her mother who I always thought of as my real mother. I was in heaven over there and hell at my home. The boy by the way was an annoying nob, but I had to pretend we were best mates

 

[Phoebe]

Enjoy..

 

[LadyMinx]

Interesting study and I'm a bit surprised it can last a lifetime.