Why Can't You Stop Stalking Your Ex on Social Media? The same thing did not happen when the same participants were asked to look at photos of their friends. One study from Columbia University found that, when participants looked at photos of a recent ex, the same centers in their brain lit up as when they were poked in the arm by a red-hot probe. Seeing photos of our ex-partner can induce real, physical pain. Stock image of a woman eating a burger and french fries in bed after a breakup. "There is quite a bit of work suggesting that going through a breakup, experiencing a romantic betrayal, or otherwise dealing with the sudden loss of an important attachment figure, can lead to feelings of pain and withdrawal that share many similarities with the withdrawal associated with stopping the use of certain chemical substances, both at the level of brain activity and in terms of subjective experience," Earp said. If love really is an addiction, it is no wonder we find it so hard to let people go. "If you accept a more 'scientific' account of love, which reduces it, controversially, to biological systems and psychobehavioral phenomena, and you consider cases where those systems and behaviors are chronically out of whack, harming oneself or others and feeling out of control, then 'love addiction' would be something like that." Why Are Breakups so Painful? "One view of love addiction is that it is a kind of compulsive desire to attach to, and engage sexually with, a romantic object where this involves a disregulated reward system, where the craving to be with someone has 'hijacked' the brain, like certain drugs are thought to do," Earp said. The first definition could be used to describe a "love addiction," where the chemical high of attachment dictates the addictive behavior. When we are in love, our brain releases feel-good hormones that create a natural high. Stock image to illustrate the neuroscience of love. that goes against a person's deeper goals or well-being, or that of others, and may become an issue for a wider range of substances or behaviors–anything from food to gambling to sex." "Another way of thinking about addiction that some philosophers favor is that it is broadly a kind of appetite–for any rewarding substance or behavior. "One is favored mostly by neuroscientists, who see addiction as a kind of relationship between a person and certain substances, where, among other things, these stimuli have 'hijacked' the brain's reward system, eliciting abnormal and dysfunctional processes that drive compulsive substance-seeking behavior, and cause withdrawal when the substance is unavailable. "There are two main ways of thinking about addiction that some scholars have identified," Earp said. Whether love can be considered as an addiction depends very much on how you define "addiction." "In any case, when we love someone, there is no doubt that our brain's reward system, of which dopamine is an important regulator, is activated by their presence, by shared experiences with them, or even just thinking about them."įunctional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans have also suggested that love can alter the structure of the areas in your brain involved in processing sensory and emotional information and reward. "Insofar as lust or libido is an important part of one's loving relationship, then chemicals like testosterone and estrogen–which regulate the sex drive, among many other bodily processes–will also be at play," Earp said. Top dating tips from "The Angry Therapist" podcast host John Kimįor some people, though, love is about something more primal.The 3 biggest mistakes people make when online dating."Don't FOMO scroll": Relationship expert on navigating the holidays single."Often, to maintain this kind of disposition toward someone, it requires a relatively healthy attachment bond, which is underwritten by various brain chemicals including serotonin and oxytocin, a neurohormone that is released through touch, hugging, kissing, orgasm, and so on," added Earp. They want to promote each other's flourishing for its own sake, without expecting specific benefits in return. "On most philosophical accounts of love, it requires that the lovers fundamentally care about one another. Earp, a senior research fellow in moral psychology at the University of Oxford, England, told Newsweek. "It depends on the theory of love you endorse," Brian D. So what actually happens in the brain when we are in love? But while a breakup might leave you heartbroken, most of it is happening in your head. Seeing photos of your ex is painful, so why do you keep going back? RyanKing999/Getty What Happens in the Brain When We Are in Love?ĭescribing love in terms of chemical reactions is not very romantic. Stock image of broken heart on two smartphone screens.
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