How Love Happens in Your Brain

"Yes, that’s right, limerence and love have a great deal in common with cocaine and heroin. Well I know what addiction I would rather go for!" - Susan

How Love Happens in You Brain 

All you can do is daydream about your love constantly and want to be with them. Euphoria. Non-stop, super human energy. Sleep? Who needs sleep? 

According to research, those intense, in-love feelings are due to highly complex, pretty unromantic chemical, cognitive, and goal directed brain processes involving over 12 areas of the brain working together to produce the magic. Physically speaking, love happens in your brain, not your heart. According to the study "The neuron-imaging of Love," love activates the same brain regions that are involved when people use euphoria inducing drugs. In your brain, being in love is similar to a cocaine high.

The brains of people in the grips of a hot and heavy, new romance are bathed with increased dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline, and vasopressin, which results in the classic swoon symptoms. The highest levels are seen in men and women who have just fallen in love, compared to those who have been in longer relationships. 

A study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans found that love activates the brain's reward system in the same way as cocaine or nicotine. Being in-love is a goal-oriented motivational state, and upon rejection, the in-love neuron are still compelled to seek their reward, the lost love, resulting in that awful longing when it's over.

Heartbreak and physical pain are actually rooted in the same regions of the brain. Love really does hurt. For this reason, it's been shown that taking aspirin really can help ease the pain of a break-up. The same study showed that the brains of people who have been rejected, weeks or even months after, were still addicted to love and go through withdrawal, just like with a drug. Over time, the rejected person's brain adapts by neural circuits re-wiring and chemical levels normalising. 

It's generally accepted that romantic love is one of three primary brain systems that evolved in humans to drive reproduction to ensure the survival of the species. The sex drive developed to motivate people to seek out mating partners. Romantic love and attraction spurred humans to pursue a specific partner while attachment increased the likelihood of them staying together long enough to fulfil parenting responsibilities. Not very romantic when put that way. Research shows that romantic love and maternal love activate different areas of the brain. (I'll bet you could have guessed that one from experience.) 

An experiment placed EEG sensors on the heads of the smitten to measure the electrical activity of their brains. When these people were just shown a picture of their loved one, activity spiked at a subconscious level within 200 milliseconds in one area of the brain. No wonder being in love can feel like you have been zapped by lightening!

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Pillow Talk: Why Post-Sex Chats Boost Intimacy

"Whilst intimate conversation  after sexual activity seems like the most natural thing to happen, I think falling asleep in each others arms is just as good",         -   Susan

Pillow Talk: Why Post-Sex Chats Boost Intimacy

The brain chemicals released after sex work to bring long-term couples closer together.

Men tend to drift off after sex—trust me, it's not you, it's the oxytocin—but with a little gentle pillow talk, you might be able to improve your relationship and your sex life.

According to biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, author of Anatomy of Love and four other books on the science of love, our brains have evolved over millennia to create deep feelings of attachment after sex. 

There are three main brain chemicals that work to bring long-term couples closer together after intercourse: oxytocin and vasopressin—known as the attachment hormones—and dopamine, the reward chemical. This cocktail of chemicals evolved, according to Fisher, to enable couples to bond long enough to raise at least one infant together. In other words, pair-bonding provides motivation to share parental chores, which benefits offspring. Evolutionarily speaking, romantic attachment is a good thing for the human race.

While sexual intercourse can create warm and fuzzy feelings for both women and men, it also tends to make men sleepy—at least in the short-term. Scientists have recently discovered that parts of men's brains shut off after sex—specifically their prefrontal cortex—which can cause drowsiness. Not exactly news to many couples, but apparently that, combined with the release of hormones like prolactin, has a profound sleep-inducing effect for men. An orgasm might make a man feel closer to his mate, but it also acts like a very pleasant sleeping pill.

So while orgasms often make women feel loving, energetic, and almost literally high—they can make men feel like they just took a don't-talk-to-me-I'm-tired pill.

In short, if he falls asleep, don't take it personally: It's not you, it's his prefrontal cortex. And his inability to answer questions can also be seen as very good feedback—he liked sex with you so much that he's completely knocked out. He also may just need a 10-minute nap instead of falling into deep sleep—you could talk to him when he wakes up from that, refreshed.

If you're strategic, and don't take his grogginess to heart, you can use the post-coital period to your advantage. Here's what to bring up, and what not to, while you're pillow-talking post-sex:

What not to say:

• "I'm really irritated about this thing you do all the time."
• "I thought I asked you to fix that crack in the ceiling."
• "That was great, darling, but last time was better."
• "I'm looking at your face and I just want to smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it, you're so pretty" (unless you're Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love).
• "I'm looking for ways to improve; will you fill out this customer-service questionnaire?"
• "And now for your performance review." 

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