Credits: Social Media
Don’t feel guilty about putting your partner on a pedestal – your brain is to blame
Romance feels magical. People in love are willing to do anything for their partners and the emotions driving their actions are truly beyond their control.
You must be aware of the age-old saying “love is blind”, but research from earlier this year decodes specific reactions that occur in the brain when falling in love, which makes us always put our partners on a pedestal.
Our brain reacts differently when in love
Romantic love is so consuming that we become oblivious to everything else. The butterflies in the stomach are inevitable while dating and we don’t behave how we normally do when “the one” walks into our lives.
Although the above-described feeling is universal and it’s said that the special someone is responsible for making you feel like you’re on cloud nine, it’s all you and your reaction to the changes in your brain.
Researchers at the�ANU,�University of Canberra, and the University of South Australia surveyed 1556 young adults who identified as being in love to find how romance impacts their brains.
The participants were asked questions focusing on the “emotional reaction to their partner, their behavior around them, and the focus they placed on their loved one above all else.”
The final results showed that our brains react differently when we are in love, thus making the “object of our affection the center of our lives.”
Why do we solely focus on our romantic partners?
Now that we know love does make our romantic partners the center of our existence, let’s see what causes this behavior as scientists name a chemical other than oxytocin responsible for it.
The University of Canberra academic and UniSA Adjunct Associate Professor, Dr. Phil Kavanagh, says romance causes changes in our emotions and behaviors.
We know oxytocin circulates throughout our nervous system and bloodstream when we interact with loved ones. “The way that loved ones take on special importance, however, is due to oxytocin combining with dopamine, a chemical that our brain releases during romantic love,” the researcher explains.
Love activates pathways in our brain that are associated with positive feelings, influencing our emotions for our romantic partners.
