14 signs of true love – how to know what you love? People have been discussing, arguing and dreaming about love for many centuries, but much still remains a mystery to us. What are you really like, love?
Love through the eyes of scientists
For poets and writers, love is almost always inextricably linked with drama, mental anguish and anguish. On the pages of romance novels, we often see an emotional roller coaster – euphoria is replaced by tears, love is replaced by hatred, etc.
The same thing happens in romantic melodramas, which are rich in world cinema. But how do scientists see love?
It turns out that even such an unearthly and immense phenomenon as love can be subjected to scientific analysis!
The researchers found that the brain of a person in love is very different from the brain of someone who feels simple lust for the object of their adoration. It also doesn’t look like the brain of someone in a long-term relationship.
Helen Fisher is an anthropologist at Rutgers University and one of the leading experts on the biological basis of love. She claims that there are 14 clear signs by which a person can understand that he is in love:
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“There is no one like him/her!”
When a person is in love, he begins to think that the object of his passion is an absolutely unique person. This belief is coupled with an inability to experience romantic passion for anyone else.
According to a 2017 article in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, this monogamy craving is the result of elevated levels of dopamine, a chemical that helps our brains focus and stay focused on something.
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Focus on positive qualities
People who are truly in love tend to see only their partner’s positive qualities, ignoring his or her flaws. In addition, a person in love begins to focus on various little things (objects, events) that remind him of his beloved or beloved.
According to a 2013 study published in the journal Motivation and Emotion, being in love prevents people from focusing on other information. Perhaps, anyone who at least once in their life has encountered those very “butterflies in the stomach” will agree with this. When you are in love, your thoughts constantly revolve around your loved one, and attempts to “descend from heaven to earth” end in failure. But after all, for this euphoric state, we love the first days of a relationship, don’t we?
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Emotional instability
It’s no secret that falling in love often leads to emotional and physiological instability. A person is torn between excitement, euphoria, energy surges, insomnia, loss of appetite, heart palpitations, trembling, panic, anxiety and feelings of despair – when any difficulties are brewing in a relationship or when the object of love pays attention to someone else.
According to a 2017 article in Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology, the same mood swings happen to drug addicts. Scientists have even found that when a lover is shown a photo of a special person for him, the same areas of the brain are activated in him as in a drug addict taking a dose. “Love is a form of addiction. When a person in love is taken away from the object of his feelings, he may experience a kind of withdrawal, ”says Fischer.
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Growing attraction
When lovers go through any hardships and emotional upheavals together, the attraction between them becomes even stronger. All the same dopamine may be responsible for this.
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obsessive thoughts
Fischer says that according to statistics, people in love spend about 85% of their time daydreaming about the object of their love. This may be due to a decrease in the level of serotonin in the brain (as in obsessive-compulsive disorders).
It is also interesting that men who are in love have lower levels of serotonin than men who are not in love, while in women everything works the other way around.
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Emotional dependency
Emotional dependence is what unites people in love all over the world. This includes a sense of ownership, and jealousy, and the fear of losing a partner, and anxiety during separation.
Fisher and her colleagues conducted an experiment – they showed subjects pictures of people who rejected them, thereby breaking their hearts. As a result, fMRI showed that while viewing these images, the subjects activated those parts of the brain that play a role in generating cravings for cocaine. “This explains the obsessive behavior of people who are faced with the rejection of love,” Fisher says.
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Future plans
Planning a joint future is another “symptom” of falling in love. According to researchers from Harvard University, when serotonin levels begin to return to normal, oxytocyne levels increase in the body. This neurotransmitter is associated with creating more serious relationships.
And neuroscientist Lucy Brown of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York says that our desire to be with someone is similar to the need for water and other things necessary for survival. “I think of love as part of a person’s reproductive strategy. Love helps us pair up and survive. We were created to learn the magic of love and reach out to each other,” she explains.
People in love, as a rule, empathize very strongly with their partners, feel their pain as their own and are ready to sacrifice anything for them. Fisher’s research also proved this – it turned out that in people who are in long-term love relationships, mirror neurons (associated with empathy, empathy) are especially active.
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Alignment of interests
For the sake of a loved one, we are ready to change, give up some habits and change our lives. Some people, being in a pool of love, become almost copies of their partners. This happens both consciously and unconsciously.
And a 2013 study by Fisher found that we are actually attracted to our opposites. In a chemical sense.
“People with the so-called testosterone-dominant personality type (highly analytical, competitive and emotionally reserved) are often attracted to people with high levels of estrogen and oxytocin. Such people tend to be empathetic, caring, trusting, prosocial, introspective,” she explains.
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Ownership
When we fall in love, we are sexually attracted to a person, but there is also a strong emotional attachment. The desire for sex with a partner is combined with the desire for sexual exclusivity and jealousy.
Interestingly, during sex, oxytocin is released, a hormone that strengthens the bond between people and develops trust. It is believed that nature has foreseen everything and made it so that a man in love rejects other admirers until conception occurs. “It allows people in a relationship to focus on a particular individual,” Fisher explains.
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Striving for emotional unity
For a person in love, not only sexual, but also emotional intimacy is important. In 2002, Fisher conducted a study that showed that 64% of people in love (the figure is the same for both sexes) disagree with the statement that sex is the most important part of a relationship. Yes, sexual compatibility is really important, but when it comes to love, the psychological aspects of relationships also come into play.
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Feelings out of control
In the late 1970s, psychologist Dorothy Tennow interviewed 400 Connecticut men and women to find out what they thought about love. The results of the survey showed that in most cases, falling in love, both men and women lose control of their feelings.
The subjects admitted that, being in love, they felt helpless and could not resist the obsession that the beloved person caused in them.
Fisher also conducted research on this topic. She remembered one of the participants – a fifty-year-old business manager. Here is how he described his feelings for a colleague: “I come to the conclusion that my attraction to Emily is a kind of biological, instinctive phenomenon that is beyond my voluntary or logical control … It controls me. I am desperately trying to free myself from his influence, direct him in another direction (for example, into sex), deny him, etc. I know that Emily and I have absolutely no chance of a future together, but the thought of her does not let me go.
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“I can’t stop admiring you!”
When you love a person, you want to look at him. Admire his face and body. By the way, this is even useful – studies show that eye contact helps partners strengthen the romantic connection between them.
- Happiness of a partner is the highest value
“Love is when you put someone else’s interests above your own,” many people know this quote from the Frozen cartoon. Numerous studies confirm the veracity of this phrase – when a person is truly in love, he is ready to do everything possible to make his partner’s life easier, carefree and happier.
And who, after this, would dare to say that love is not the most beautiful thing that has happened to humanity?
HOW TO DISTINCT REAL LOVE FROM FAKE? 14 signs of true love – how to know what you love? People have been discussing, arguing and dreaming about love for many centuries, but much still remains a mystery to us. What are you really like, love
