For my last post, I would like to give my view or sort of my claim on the topic of what love is. What I want to argue is that love is a chemical change in our brain, it does cause a change in our body, but I want to say is love is something we cannot measure, when you say "I love you more" what are you saying how can you measure that love, for me loving someone is something you don't think twice about, for me you don't think you love the person you just know you do. I also argue for that love is a drive, love is something we fight for, we go out and we try to find love, or we try to keep it, because love is the most important drive we have. Love is key in our lives and without love we are not humans, love is the greatest emotion we have, and for me when you truly love someone you find it very hard to live without them, and you try everything in your power to keep them safe, and for me that is how you show love, but how much you are willing to give so that person will be safe? So have you ever felt love?

Love is so mysterious, love can be so many things, it can be a beautiful emotion we all have, it can probably be part of the basic emotions of happiness, sadness, mad, surprise, etc. Love may also be a chemical change in our brain, with our brain producing more hormones like oxytocin when is the key hormone in building trust with the person, and also attraction to the person as well. Other then being a drive love can also be a body change, with our hearts producing more blood, and even our cells coming together. So when the changes in our body and brain work together we produce the feeling of falling in love with someone.

After conducting my research I've learned a lot about how love has an affect on our body and also on our brain. Another thing that I learned that I really never taught of was that love is not only an emotion that all humans have, but it is this sort of drive we all have, just like the drive we have to eat, to drink, or to sleep, love is just as important as these other drives if not more. Love has been something we have all experienced in some way, loving a brother/sister, pet, your parents, or anybody else, love is everywhere, and you have to do your best to find it and also give your love back to eat, and by doing that you will become so much happier and healthier.

Now the last question left to answer is do we experience different kinds of love for different people? Well to me this is true, the love we feel for our parents and siblings, is not the same love we feel for our partner. In love you can break it down into three different qualities 1. Attraction, or what is known as "is the "chemistry" part of love. It's all about the physical — even sexual — interest that two people have in each other."(Teens Health) The second aspect is 2.Closeness "the bond that develops when we share thoughts and feelings that we don't share with anyone else." The last aspects is 3.Commitment "the promise or decision to stick by the other person through the ups and downs of the relationship." With these three qualities coming together love can truly become something amazing and will last you a life time.

So getting back to the topic of  what are some of the signs of falling in love, there are six stages of falling in love, in the eyes of Alan Cassell. Alan says that when we start to fall for someone we enter the first stage which is called the "infatuation stage" in this stage we begin to attach ourselves to the person, or as Alan writes " You cannot stop thinking about this person and tend to spend every minute with this person. " so this is the first stage. Stage number 2 is the "understanding stage" which is simply the stage in which you try to get to know the person in a more intimate manner, learning their career goals, likes and dislikes, and interests. Entering the third stage which is the "disturbance stage" in this stage you usually have the first real argument, "This is a critical junction in a relationship and is often the defining factor as to how the relationship will develop further or end abruptly." In this stage a lot of relationships are over because of an argument. The next stage is the "moulding stage" in this stage "Often couples have a preconceived idea of what their perfect mate will be like and it is during this stage when a decision has been made to create a future with this person, many begin to try and change or shape the partner to meet those expectations. A very important point that must be made during this stage is one must be happy with one's self." So try not to change to much. The fifth stage or the happiness stage, is the point in which you have found complete love for the person, and the relationship seems to move along much smoother and it appears you have found the perfect match and couples often decide to get married." Lastly the last stage is the stage in which you can lose your partner or the "The doubting stage can also end a relationship. Studies have shown this stage to be the basis of many divorces" Here love can be lost between the two, and they divorce, so love is hard to find and easy to lose, but it can make us the happiest so it's worth the risk.

Today I want to talk about what are something's you might find, or some clues that you are falling in love with that person. We all know relationships can last a few days, few weeks, mouths, many years, or if you are lucky a relationship can last up to forever with that one special someone, but what makes some relationships last longer than other ones? The answer to this question is not a easy one, this is because in a relationship they are many things that must come together in order for a relationship to last, some of these things being communication with the person, if you two can compromise in any given situation, and another thing may be how much you two have in common. But for any relationship to last more than a few weeks, months, or even years you must feel something more for the person and this is love, love is key in any relationship, no matter where you are from. So in the United State census found that in a population of 1,000 people nearly 7 of them got married, but on the other side of the census found that 4 out 1,000 filed for a divorce. These numbers may not seem so high but if you see it in the way that if 20 couples got married, about 11 of those couples will get divorced just over half! So who can it be so high, what are those couples missing? The simple answer is what there ever love to begin with?

Staying on the topic, I do believe we can be addicted to that special someone, to show this I found an article that describes the addiction of love. In the article the author says "when we are in love, we feel an overwhelmingly strong attraction to another person—one that is persistent, urgent, and hard to ignore."( Earp, Brain)  Another example is  “By nature we are all addicted to love ... meaning we want it, seek it and have a hard time not thinking about it. We need attachment to survive and we instinctively seek connection, especially romantic connection. [But]  there  is  nothing  dysfunctional  about  wanting     love.”  – Smith, quoted in Berry (2013)   So may be  being  in love  is  something  we must  have  in  our  lives,  and is something  we  can become  addicted to,  which may  explain  why  even  after we  have  a  heartbreak  we continue  to seek  for someone  to love,  and this may not be  such a bad  thing, because love can be something indescribable and truly amazing.   

Today, I do not want to talk about what love is, but how love can be addictive and something we want more and more of. I think we all remember our first crush, our first ever kiss, our first everything, but something we also might remember which may not be as great as a first kiss, is our first heartbreak. What a terrible feeling, almost as if someone ripped out our heart and just stepped on it, like as if our world has just ended. These are probably some of the feelings we felt when we had our first heartbreak, and it may have taken us some time to get out of such a sad mood and get back to our lives, and during the time we are recovering our broken heart we might say "I'm never falling in love again" "love is stupid" but the thing is right after we pick up the pieces and put them back together, we go out in search for love once more, and this leads me to believe that love is not only a drive we have, but it can also be a drug we can be addicted to, and the person we are falling for we become addicted to them, always wanting to hear them, talk to them, hold them, or just see them.

So with going on with the topic of today, if there is a possibility that love may be necessary to survive, does that make love just as important as water, food, and safety? As I've done my research I am now faced with this question, and well I believe that love is just as important if not more important, and this idea of love being so key came from Maslow saying that love was part of his basic needs, which were water, food, etc. Also since we have the drive to go out and get food by either cooking it, or buying we are driven to eat, same as drinking, we are driven to drink water, soda, anything when we are thirsty, with these being "drives" that we have does that make love a "drive" as well. The answer to this is yes, and this same topic on if love is a drive was in a TED talk that I found by Helen Fisher called the Brain In Love. Helen says "love is a drive" "the biggest drive we have" After watching her TED talk I learned a lot especially not on just what love is but on a universal standpoint, and seeing how they view love, and I found that love is something beautiful and is something we all go out and try to find, just like food and water.

After learning how love can affect your body and your brain, now I want to try to understand exactly what love, and if love is something we need to survive? If you ever ask anyone around you or from another city, state, or country we all have different views on what love is, and because of this it makes it pretty difficult to know what love is. So for me love is something we do need, can you live a life without love, the answer is yes, but you can never be yourself, you can see this in kids who unfortunately are abused or neglected. in these kids when they are abused or neglected or just simply not given "love" can never be themselves, and a study found "children exposed to violence or abuse, if left unaddressed or ignored, are at an increased risk for emotional and behavioral problems in the future" also "Children who are abused may not be able to express their feelings safely and as a result, may develop difficulties regulating their emotions. As adults, they may continue to struggle with their feelings, which can lead to depression or anxiety"(Joyful Heart) So living a life without love is possible but it has a lot of harmful effects on your health, and this leads me to believe that love might just be necessary.

Staying on the topic on how love changes our body I found a very surprising fact on love and how fast it takes us to fall in love " A new study by Syracuse University found it only takes a fifth of a second to fall in love."(Twomey, Rebecca) That is something almost out of this world, how can we fall in love that quickly with just only looking at the person? How can this be well research found that "When you're in love your cells start to produce a milky substance to help them stick together"( Twomey, Rebecca) So even when falling in love, the cells in our body become more attached and want to bond together, just like how you want to be with the person you love, you want to be with them, and stick together. "Dr John Marsden senior lecturer in addictive behaviour at the National Addiction Centre says "Therefore, your body changes quickly with the emotion of love. The brain has internal drug factories, which makes us ecstatically happy when we are with the person we are falling in love with." So with our bodies and brain both working together, they help give us the emotion of love.

For today we will talk about again how our bodies change when we are in love with another person. As you know when you love someone you are more attached to them, but the question is how? what is happening in our body that causes us to be with the person more and more? The answer to this question is not a easy one, but some things that have been found to help answer these questions come from a psychologist that found that "heart rhythms, facial expressions, and hand gestures begin to synchronize in long-term lovers—a process largely regulated by the vagus nerve , which winds from the brain to the heart."(Smith, Jeremy) This is incredible to think that when you love someone for a long amount of time, you come together and begin to in a way become one, our heart beats match the person we love, hand gestures become the same, it's amazing how much of an impact love can have on us and  our bodies.

So getting back on the topic on how love can change our bodies, I found some great information on just how this happens and if there is anything we can do to stop these changes in our bodies from occurring. As it is found when we begin to like someone and begin to feel love for that person our body begins to start to be with them more, and always wanting have the person around you. This is caused by "our blood flooded with the neurotransmitter oxytocin, which predicts attachment behavior, and has been shown to increase generosity and empathy."(Smith, Adam Jeremy) So with our body filled with extra oxytocin we are driven to be with the person more. This is why oxytocin is known as the trust and devotion hormone, and with our body filled with it we fall in love with the person, and we don't want to be without them.

Today the topic isn't going to be on how love affects our brain and which hormones are produced, and how they affect us in ways we cannot see. No today is about how our body is affected by love, and how love can completely change our bodies in good ways but also maybe in bad ways. for which William Shakespeare once said about love “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, O no! it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.” love can be a great delight, and can renew our bodies and give us strength, but it can also cause us headaches, stress, and other unhealthy issues, but how does love do this to our bodies? Can we stop the effects of love from effecting our body, is there anything we can do to stop love?

Now the most important hormone that is key in love is the hormone serotonin. in this hormone our brain keeps the person we are in love with in our thoughts all day long, or what is known as ‘love struck’ and because of this "your new love keeps popping into your thoughts."(Arun, Arthur). This is key hormone in order to fall in love because it keeps that special someone always in our mind, and maybe love is a chemical change in our brain, maybe love is caused by a hormonal change in our brain.

Getting back to the topic of yesterday, our brains are changed when we fall in love, releasing large amounts of hormones that play a key role in giving us the sense of falling in love. A hormone that is released in our brain that makes us want more and more of that person is Dopamine. this hormone is key in falling in love because it "stimulates ‘desire and reward’" (Arun,Arthur) this hormone is almost as a reward system, the more we see them the higher our dopamine levels get, and this is because we get a sense of reward for seeing the person and this is why we can't get enough of them. this is why dopamine "has the same effect on the brain as taking cocaine! "(Arun,Arthur)

 In our brain we also go through change, the more we care for someone the more our brain begins to release more and more hormones. When we love someone many say it is a neurological change, our brain is the reason why we fall in love. this is because when we love someone we release more adrenaline, which "increases your blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol, when this happens you start to sweat, your heart races and your mouth goes dry."(Arun, Arthur) with extra adrenaline in our body we begin to want to be around the person more and more, almost as if the person is a drug and we cannot get enough of that person, and maybe this is why love is something we cannot get enough of and we keep wanting even if our heart gets broken.

 

So in my quest in finding exactly what love is, I started with a psychologist who is very famous and his work was used in a movie many of us have all seen, and the movie is Cast Away. in this movie a man is left on an island alone. in this island he found a safe place to live and food to eat, but he was missing something very important, and this is love, or as this psychologist said "our basic psychological needs" these needs consisted of "air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, and sleep." (Maslow (1943) ) so with having these needs met you can move on up in Maslow Hierarchy, but in order to move on up you must need love, as he said "It is quite true that man lives by bread alone — when there is no bread. But what happens to man’s desires when there is plenty of bread and when his belly is chronically filled?" (Maslow) even when you have all other needs met you need love, but still what is love?

In the search of what exactly love is, I was completely stuck, I had no idea where to begin, we all have an idea of what we believe love is and that to me is what makes love so unique to each individual, but to define love you have to understand the changes it can cause in your brain, but also throughout  your whole body. Trying to describe to someone what it feels like to be falling in love, is just as hard as describing to someone what it feels like to feel a touch. It's almost impossible, because you really can't find the words to describe what it feels like to touch a rock or a hand, there are no words to describe that feeling, and this is exactly what it feels like in trying to describe what you are feeling when you are falling for that special individual. One thing we can see or sort of measure is what is happening in our body when we are falling in love. In our brains we release extra oxytocin, which is a hormone in our brain that is used in loving someone and building trust. In our body our heart beats ten times as fast, we start to sweat uncontrollably when we are around him or her, but is this love? Or just a reaction?

In this blog, I want to give my definition on what I believe love is. To have an idea in trying to define exactly what it is we call "love" I used the Auraria library to find journals, books, and other sources to help me define this mysterious, but also heart warming word.