Love
can be divided into three entities: lust, romance and attachment,
according to anthropologist Dr Helen Fisher, who has been studying the
subject for 32 years. These three brain systems can operate in any
order and in any combination. You can fall in love with someone before
you sleep with them; you can become deeply attached to somebody and
then fall in love with them; and you can have a sexual relationship,
fall in love and then become deeply attached.
Lust is a craving
for sexual gratification, which you can feel for a whole range of
people. Those caught up in romantic love focus all their attention on
the object of their affection. Not only do they crave them, but they
are highly motivated to win them, they obsessively think about them and
become extremely sexually possessive. Perhaps illogically, if things go
wrong. they are attracted to them even more. During this state the
brain is driven by dopamine, a neurotransmitter central to the reward
system.
Romantic love is much more powerful than sex drive, says
Dr Fisher, of Rutgers University, New Jersey. And she believes it to be
a drive, rather than an emotion. "It doesn't have any facial
expression, it's very difficult to control and it's one of the most
powerful neural systems that has evolved," she says.
The third
brain system is attachment - that sense of calm and security you can
feel for a long-term partner. It is associated with the hormones
vasopressin and oxytocin, which are probably responsible for the sense
of peacefulness and unity felt after having sex. Holding hands also
drives up oxytocin levels, as does looking deeply into your loved one's
eyes, massage, and simply sitting next to them.
LOVE CAN IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH
Love
can be good for your health. If you are married, or happily cohabiting,
in the long term you will suffer from less depression and live
significantly longer than those who are single, divorced or widowed.
But to get the full health benefits, you have to pick the correct
partner, argues Dr Raj Persaud in Simply Irresistible, the Psychology
of Seduction.
The lowest mortality rates were found in those who
were named by their partner as a key source of emotional support and
closeness, but who themselves actually named someone else as the one
special person in their life.
For both husbands and wives, the
worst mortality rate was found in partners neither of whom named the
other as the special person on whom they relied for emotional support
and closeness.
BAD LOVE
Choose the wrong partner and
you could be in trouble. Research suggests that an unhappy marriage
raises your chances of developing clinical depression by around 30 per
cent. Women who divorce are 60 per cent more likely to get heart
disease in later life than those who stay married, according to
research from Texas University.
A 10-year study of around 10,000
men and women in the Journal of Marriage and the Family found that the
danger is gender-specific: among men, marital loss has a negligible
effect on the risk of heart disease. The reason for this is not clear,
though it may be that women tend to value themselves more in terms of
family relationships, while men value themselves primarily in terms of
their occupation.
A study of 101 divorced women by the US-based
Veterans Affairs group found that marital dissolution can significantly
increase their risk of suffering mental and physical health problems.
The risk is highest among younger women who described their marriages
as "harmonious".
LOVE IS BLIND
Scientists have
discovered that certain parts of the brain become deactivated when
we're in love, including areas linked with negative emotions, planning,
critical social assessment, the evaluation of trustworthiness and fear.
Biological
studies have found that this phase of reduced cognitive function,
during which faults are ignored, can last from one to two and a half
years. This temporary state of delusion has a vital human function. If
we immediately saw all our partner's faults, we would be less likely to
form a stable relationship in which to produce children.
And it
is just as well that it is short-lived: romantic love is has an
enormous metabolic cost. "I think romantic love evolved to enable
people to focus their mating energy onto just one person at a time,
thereby conserving mating time and energy," says Dr Fisher. "It's not
conducive to real life to live in this state for 20 years because
you're distracted by it, you can't think of other things, you forget
what you are doing, you probably don't eat properly, you certainly
don't sleep well and you go through highs and lows."
Problems can
arise when the pink mist eventually lifts and we see our loved one for
what they really are - as flawed as we are. It may to wise to wait
until brain function is fully restored before making a decision to
marry. By then you may well feel sufficiently attached to your partner
to put up with their irritating habits. "I think attachment evolved to
tolerate someone at least long enough to rear a child together," says
Dr Fisher. But don't dismay that the best bit is over once lucidity
returns. Couples can feel peaks of romantic love throughout their
relationship.
WHAT BECOMES OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED?
Death
rates rise significantly after the death of a spouse. In one of the
largest scientific studies of its kind, the Population Research Unit at
the University of Helsinki found that mortality rates were more than
three times higher for men compared to women.
For both genders
they are at their highest during the first week after the death of the
spouse, and then they drop slowly but steadily during the following six
months. The unit also found that the number of people dying as a result
of blocked arteries around the heart rose dramatically after the death
of a spouse.
"So it appears that the hearts of men,
predominantly, often cannot cope with the grief of losing a life
partner," says Dr Raj Persaud. "These men are literally dying from a
broken heart. One theory is that the grief of losing someone as close
to you as a marriage partner is one of the greatest strains it is
possible to face, and this enormous stress has a direct and deleterious
effect on your physical health, in particular the cardiovascular
system. Women perhaps cope with the stress of grief better than men
because expressing emotional turmoil, venting distress, confiding in
others and using formal resources such as psychotherapy are all more
feminine strategies. Men tend to remain silent and keep feelings of
distress and anxiety to themselves."
LOVE HURTS, LITERALLY
Dr
Helen Fisher and her team gave MRI scans to 17 people who were happy in
love and 15 who had been rejected in love. The latter had been
brokenhearted for an average of 63 days. In this group, they found
activity in a region of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which
has a high number of dopamine receptors. "It suggests that when you
have been dumped you love that person more," says Dr Fisher. Activity
was also found in parts of the brain associated with risk-taking,
physical pain, obsessive-compulsive behaviour, controlling anger and
theory of mind - imagining what the other person is thinking.
"It
made me understand a little bit more about why people become so
depressed," says Dr Fisher. "You're intensely in love, you have just
been rejected, but you are still in love, if not even more so, and you
are willing to take enormous risks. You are in physical as well as
psychological pain, you are obsessing about this person, you are trying
to control your anger and you're trying to evaluate what to do next.
You are in a very uncomfortable state. No wonder so many crimes of
passion take place."
DEATH BY MARRIAGE
If the stress
of arranging a wedding doesn't kill you, there is a higher-than-average
chance of keeling over immediately after you've got hitched. For both
men and women mortality rates rise in the period just after the wedding
day, according to a recent survey of over 12,000 German adults.
The
stress of a new situation may be a factor, as well as a profound change
in living circumstances. "Marriage is often associated with a
geographic move for at least one partner," says Dr Persaud. "The spouse
who moved may have had to cut emotional networks and change social
interaction patterns and daily routines. However, after two years, the
research suggests, married partners adapt to their new life and the
mortality rate starts to improve compared to unmarried people."
'Til death do us part
* A study published in the Journal of Sex Research found that attractive people flirt more, even those with partners.
*
Researchers found that one in four marriages continues because partners
couldn't find a better alternative. 'Staying together for the sake of
the children' was the most common reason.
* Women generally seek
status, occupational prestige and intelligence in a male partner, while
men, in general, seek physical attractiveness in women.
*
Research suggests that to help maintain a successful relationship you
should say five positive things to your partner for each negative
statement about them.
* When scientists gave MRI scans to 32
people who were madly in love and showed them a picture of their
partner, it activated the part of the brain that responds when you feel
the rush of cocaine.
* Obstacles heighten romantic love. If you
fall in love with the person who lives next door, and they're happily
married, you could be suffering for decades.
* Researchers found
that the first three minutes of a married couple's argument indicate
whether they will get divorced within six years. Those who engage in
critical statements such as "you always" or "you never" are more likely
to split up.
* A study of 37 middle-aged men found that lower
testosterone levels were associated with better marital satisfaction
and higher quality parent-adolescent relationships. Careers which
encourage competitiveness in men drive up testosterone levels.
* Unmarried women have a significantly worse death rate from cancer than married women.
*
Although research has shown that marriage is the greatest source of
conflict as well as being the greatest source of satisfaction, the
married are generally much happier than the unmarried.
'Why We
Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love' by Dr Helen Fisher is
published in America by Henry Holt. 'Simply Irresistible, the
Psychology of Seduction and How to Catch and Keep your Perfect Partner'
by Dr Raj Persaud is published by Bantam Press, priced £12.99