Brain scan studies have shown that early romantic love generates a unique pattern of brain activity. How do we know this? Well, to study love on the brain, researches put men and women in brain scan machines and show them pictures of their loved ones.

If we do a brain scan of the person in love, we can see that regions of the brain related to addiction light up when the person sees a photo of his or her beloved.

What looking at the picture of the loved one is doing is provoking the same response of neural activation located in the area of the brain associated with intense reward. This response is similar to the ones that appear when people take addictive drugs or gamble, or receive a strong jolt of excitement.

Even better, this work suggests, for the first time, that we can predict the intensity of the same love after 18 months in the future, by looking at how intense the brain patterns are now, during the early phase of romantic love.

Does romantic love translates across cultures? For instance, does a Chinese brain look the same as an American brain when it’s in love?

Regardless how many cultural differences are in ways to express love, they don’t change the brain’s neurological reaction to romantic love. The scans showed that love lights up the brain in the same manner in any culture.

“This measure doesn’t depend on culture,” Dr. Aron explained. “We were able to replicate our American findings in the Chinese culture where everyone thought love would be the most different.”

Dr. Aron said. “What the study does suggest is that love is a powerful force in human life. What is going on at the deep level of the brain is pretty much the same everywhere in each culture.”

Why is this research important? Because feeling in love shakes up our brains, makes them light with pleasure and thus transforms our lives…It is the basis for a healthy marriage. This is the emotion that we need to experience to restore balance, to make us grow in life and to fulfill a deep need for connection with other. There is no substitute for the brain excitement a new love can bring!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: brain in love, Healthy Marriage, love and connection, loving marriage

Can you ignore it? Of course you can…if it is too painful to remember what it means, right?
Basically, it reminds us of the excitement from love feelings. Love feelings? Ha, what were those, you might ask?

When you first fall in love, there are certain chemicals in your brain that make all your perspective shift into high gear…you really know that you are in love, because you feel it all the time. Your pulse quickens; your heart beats and this delicious feeling of anticipation gives a rosy tint to your (previously boring) life.

You also know what follows: once the first wave of excitement is gone, or destroyed by some unkind comment or nasty put down, dissapointment sets in. You are in a relationship, right, but the pulse-quickening excitement is gone! Now, you tell yourself that at least, you get security being in this relationship, and that has to be enough…

The chemistry of love is based on the brain: every time we produce a feeling or a thought, we can be sure that it is based on a chemical track in our brain. The love excitement felt by the chemicals in the brain is highly addictive!

And we all need that burst of dopamine in the brain that makes us feel alive, excited, deeply connected and successful…either produced by a relationship, or produced from being in love with our own lives.

Well, then, here is a different tack on this Valentine issue: can you get equally excited about loving your own life? Self-love is usually discounted up front, but without a deep connection with yourself, you will always be waiting for others to give you recognition, support and love!

And we all know that putting your self esteem at the mercy of others is not a good starting point for any relationship. Sometimes we accept the pain of a bad relationship as a screen that covers the first hurt: we are abandoning ourselves! We learned that while growing up and being not appreciated in our families; now is normal to feel not worthy of love and connection with others.

If you know that an important part of your happiness is being cared for and appreciated by your partner, be sure that you respect and care for yourself and your own projects first. Whatever makes you happy and gets you excited about your life has to be cared for and included in your life plan, either single or married.

And what is important for you has to be important for any partner you can select: don’t accept that your spouse rejects or ignores an important part of you. It is the equivalent to rejecting a piece of you, so don’t agree of dumping those values or that interest only because he tells you it’s worthless.

Take stock of what you are looking for to make yourself happy. Whatever the kind of emotional abuse you had in your past, we need to remember that the basic task of life: to accept and love oneself is still to be done. We are responsible for a life project that is uniquely ours; nobody else can do it for us. If you didn’t learn to love yourself growing up, why can’t you accept this Valentine day to begin doing it?

Only when we recover the path to self-development, we get in touch again with this wonderful person inside us waiting to grow up, be mature and independent and able to enter only into relationships full of support and respect.

Now, isn’t it a wonderful Valentine message to be able to look us in the mirror and say: “Here is to you and your happiness, lovely girl! Happy Valentine!”

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: abuse, appreciation, love and connection, respect, Self-Esteem, Valentine's Day