The Truth About Love and Vulnerability
Love is a complex network of behaviors and emotions characterized by emotional intimacy, romance, passion, commitment, caring, respect, emotional support, and sharing. It involves emotional intimacy, romance, passion, commitment, caring, respect, trust, and affection. Love is often described as the language of love. It involves a wide range of positive emotions, such as happiness, novelty, adventure, vitality, joy, vitality, happiness, peace, and joy, but it can also occasionally involve negative emotions, such as anxiety, fear, resentment, anger, sadness, envy, guilt, or even self-pity. It is important to keep in mind that love does not consist solely of these basic emotions; there are also several other emotions that are involved in loving relationships, including trust, admiration, concern, and concern for another person’s well being.
One of the most intriguing aspects of love is that it involves both the physical and chemical responses in the brain. The physical part of the brain deals with impulses from the sensory organs and includes the responses of the eyes, ears, nose, skin, muscles, heart, lungs, stomach, blood pressure, temperature, neurotransmitters, hormones, and glands. The chemical responses involve neurotransmitters, hormones, and cellular processes that involve the brain, nerve cells, organs, tissues, and cells in the body. Both of these processes occur in the brain, but they are separated. In essence, love makes the physical brain respond in a way that causes it to release chemicals related to attachment and bonding, while the chemical processes happen away from the body and outside the brain.
The study of love and the brain has had a long history since the early days of the relationship between humans and their mates. In recent years, experts have been focusing on oxytocin as the neurotransmitter of choice. Oxytocin is often referred to as the “cuddle hormone” because it provides strong pleasurable feelings when someone offers comfort or support after which it encourages one to return to that person and provide similar feelings again. If you feel emotionally unavailable and are incapable of reciprocating the feelings of attachment, then oxytocin will provide you with strong and lasting feelings of emotional availability, together with corresponding physical and physiological responses such as eye movement, mouth and arm movement, breathing, tremors, heart palpitation, tremors, and so on.
When we are in a state of romantic love, we spend more time and effort thinking about another person than we do actually doing our own activities. For example, when you are engaged in a relationship, your brain is probably focused on your partner rather than yourself. You become aware of the special feelings of attachment you have for your mate and start to think about spending time, money, gifts, intimacy with your mate, etc. But your body may be going into starvation mode and you will not be receiving the nutrients you need to remain healthy. This does not mean you cannot fall in love again, it just means that when you are in love with another person, you will need to pay more attention to your health.
In a recent study done at the University of Toledo in Ohio, neuroscientists did a test to see how much emphasis each of their participants placed on the others’ physical appearance. The participants were shown pictures of either themselves or a fictional person. After looking at the pictures, they were asked to rate how much the image captured aspects of their appearance. The participants who had been shown positive images had significantly more than those who had been shown negative ones. Interestingly, the participants who were shown oxytocin-related pictures also rated these images higher than those who had been shown non-related pictures.
Oxytocin is known to foster bonding and affection and it is believed that the hormone helps us to feel love for another person. It is also possible that you are not always exposed to enough positive emotional experiences early in life to start building strong relationships. With that said, you can take time to get that good emotional foundation going and to develop those feelings of love and affection for another person. Just remember that love makes you vulnerable and if you are prone to falling into unhealthy relationship patterns, you should avoid them. Rather, take the time to be vulnerable with someone who will not hurt you in return and who will treat you right.