February 15, 2005
Belated valentine
This morning, my friend told me about a conference she attended Saturday entitled "The Neurobiology of Love". In honor of Valentine's Day, for which I was in a black hole , (and not the dismal kind) I will pass along a few tidbits.
Aside: Although I despise Mother's Day, Father's Day and National Secretary's Day for their blatant commercial intent, I do love a good Valentine. Valentine's Day seems homemade and sweetly Victorian.
Tidbits as promised.
Evidently research shows that women use an average of 9000 words per day, versus an average of 3000 for men. This is why Valentine's Day comes in handy. It provides a structure for the laconic in which to articulate certain sentiments that might otherwise be left out in the word-rationing process. The presenter at this conference also felt that women abuse men for their biologically based lip button, and should stop doing so. Why? Criticism, contempt , defensiveness and withdrawal are behaviors that fatally erode relationships according to John Gottman , a marriage researcher at the University of Washington. Anyone who is interested in sustaining enduring love should consider eliminating such behaviors from their fighting repetoire.
Moving right along, recent research using brain scans reveals that falling in love (limerence ) and cocaine addiction are remarkably similar in the brain activity department. No wonder the entire population is mooning about "love". As we know, that limerence stuff, as much fun as it is, usually peters out (pardon the expression) after all too brief a time.
So how do we get those who came together in passion to stick around for the rapture ? Voles have helped us understand the biochemistry involved. It seems that the hormone, oxytocin is responsble for enduring love. Your will be delighted to hear that you can improve your personal oxytocin production by engaging in such activities as cuddling , gazing , stroking, helping , verbally expressing sweet nothings, or practicing tantric sex. If or when you don't have a partner, you can probably pump out quite a bit of oxytocin while petting your cat .
The biochemically savy will include alot of oxytocin-producing activities along with passionate sex the next time they are smitten , thus upping the probability of enduring love.
The presenter thought that someone could make a mint by opening a heartbreak hotel where people could recover (biochemically of course) from having their hearts broken.
Addendum;; If you ever want to see a great movie about the effects of love interrupted in limerence, and healing through deidealization, rent"Truly Madly Deeply" One never knows when one might have such an impulse, so I just thought I'd throw that in .
Photo note: Chasing rainbows - can you see the hearts?
Posted by Dakota at February 15, 2005 06:13 AM