Amazing psychological facts about love...

When you think about love, you probably picture couples holding hands or driving off into the sunset together. You might imagine yourself falling in love with that one special person of your dreams. You might even have a list of things your perfect mate should embody.

Did you know that love actually is blind? And that men are more likely to say “I love you” before their female partner does? Neither did we, until we started researching the wonderful and mysterious world of falling in love and having feelings for another human being. Love is the main topic for our lives and our psychology, our biology, and our history.

While poets and songwriters put romantic thoughts and feelings into strong words, love remains a complicated mystery.

Falling in love is exciting. Colors seem brighter. Obstacles seem to vanish. The whole world is a more beautiful place because of our newfound lover. Although this may seem true at that particular moment, some of those strong feelings are occurring due to chemicals released in the brain.

Although the science behind love isn’t extremely romantic, it is quite fascinating to realize our bodies' complexity. Here are a few interesting facts about love.

• Love is three feelings in 1 - There’s a reason love is so complicated and indescribable — it’s actually three feelings in one. According to a team of scientists led by famous biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, romantic love can actually be broken down into three sensations: lust, attraction, and attachment. And each feeling is characterized by its own set of hormones stemming from the brain.

• Falling in love is as addicting as cocaine or nicotine - Dopamine, a chemical that is released during the initial attraction stage of the relationship, is also activated when using cocaine and nicotine. It gives you that rush of pleasure and happiness that makes those drugs so addicting. It also enhances the release of testosterone, which, as stated above, is essential for attraction. We suppose falling in love would be the safer drug of choice if you had to choose between the three.

• Being in love changes you - If you find yourself watching romantic comedies when you used only to prefer thrillers or suddenly love new cuisine you didn’t before, you might want to credit your partner. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people in love often have different interests and personality traits after entering into their respective relationships. One of the study’s authors suggested that people have a more diverse sense of self and increased self-esteem after falling in love.

• Love can literally make you crazy - Something you may or may not know about love is that it can lead to serious infatuation. The same serotonin levels that bring about the desire are found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is an anxiety disorder. This is probably why you cannot seem to think of anyone else when you have fallen in love.

• Your nerve cells work better during the first year of love - A protein in our bodies called Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) that is important for the functions of certain sympathetic and sensory nerve cells seems to thrive during the first year of being in love. Basically, our senses are heightened, and our fight or flight response system is more active during young love.

• Love can make you sick - If you’ve ever heard someone say they’re lovesick, they may have been onto something. Though it hasn’t been proven that love makes you physically sick, it does raise cortisol levels, according to Richard Schwartz, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Cortisol is a stress hormone that has been shown to suppress immune function, making you more likely to get sick.

• It takes just one-fifth of a second to fall in love - Out of all the discoveries scientists have made on the topic of love, the most romantic might just be how quickly someone can fall in love. A meta-analysis study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there and experience it for yourself! #Psychologicalfacts, #Love, #Lovelife, #Lovepsychology, #Loveisblind, #Amazinglove, #Feelingofheart