Evolution has not equipped to love the people in vain, with the ability to: Without the victory of love over our rationality, life would not only be boring, it would also be dangerous.
Something Positive to the start of the year, we decide in our editorial conference. I could write about love, I hear myself saying. About what love is, where it originates, and how and why.
Great, say the colleagues. I Idiot, I think only a few minutes later. After all, who writes about love, you must also write about their Failure. About the pain of unrequited love. About the end of love relationships. About broken heart. And it is clear why I came up with the idea at all.
Love is everywhere. You is universal. There is no culture, the scientists have not been investigated so far, know the love. Nevertheless, researchers are concerned, it is only since the 1980s, with the phenomenon. Psychologists, neuroscientists and sociologists are trying since then to get the love on the track. And find different answers on what love is at all.
At the beginning of the (hormone)Chaos
Love is of transmitters and the result of an age-old Cocktails of neuro peptides and neurotransmitters, writes the Indian scientist Krishna Seshadri in his publication, “The neuroendocrinology of love” is completely unromantic. Love the waves go through different stages, which are each activated different regions in the brain, our body with numerous hormones.
To be in love is so beautiful! And at the same time so exhausting
It all begins when someone suddenly takes on a special meaning for us: He is unique! His Laugh is wonderful to look his way in the world so special. She is humorous and of course very pretty. Talking to her is doing well. He is perfect! She is perfect! You know, isn’t it? Exactly, we are in love.
In this stage, we are fixated on the object of desire, everything that he or she is doing, we are following with utmost attention. Strengths excessive, the error is either completely ignored or irrelevant findings. For our environment, we are in this state is an absolute disgrace.
In love: Stress pur!
In doing so, we can’t help it: neuro-biologically absolute exception is state. Similar to a situation of extreme stress – but in a positive sense. According to Seshadri, the increased cortisol levels of the Lovers is important for the formation of the binding that you crave so hot.
To be in love. The intensity of the feelings is similar to a drug rush. No wonder, because in both cases, the reward system of the brain is activated. We feel less fear, the mood is rising, depression is no trace. Our judgment, we can enter into this Phase, however, safely in the bin.
Most of the emotional height of flight is accompanied by extreme sexual pleasure. Because in addition to the sex hormones testosterone and Estrogen to rise with in the Ring and down to us constantly, in the literal sense.
Oxytocin against the noise
Psychologists are divided about how long the state of being in love can last. What is clear is that at some point he is over. For those who don’t throw the towel in, it’s more quiet. And loving.
The bonding hormone Oxytocin has finished the beautiful but stressful noise and ensures peace. The bonding of two lovers can deepen. Who dares, must now fall. The partners and support each other. Even in the bad times.
More to love relationships: the dispute in the partnership: Who fights, loses
Love Ratio
For the evolutionary psychologist David Buss that is exactly the key function of the of love: them together binds two people who decide to have a life together, including the obligations, children, and compromises, in a special way.
Two people rationally decide for each other, there is the danger that at any time someone around the corner could come, the more beautiful, stronger, better. It is love that protects us against the Partner in such moments, just runs.
If mom and dad are in love, can the young be cared for
“Love triumphs over rationality,” writes Buss in “The Evolution of Love in Humans”. The unconditional love is more than a romantic notion. It is a survival of important protection of the family. It prevents both partners must be in a permanent state of alert and concern, the next best thing rival could destroy the entire life design.
The monogamous way of life, dedicated to the majority of people in couple relationships – at least in theory, the partnership and the family additional stability. All existing resources are invested in only one family, in order to secure their own Survival and that of the children. Also the exclusive Sex in this context, meaning: During orgasm Oxytocin is released, and the connection of the couple deepens.
More to monogamy: monogamy is just an invention
Without love no life
And still, relationships fail and be terminated. The fall can be deep: “The loss of love is one of the worst experiences that a Person can make. Beyond that psychological pain only by horrific events such as the death of a child,” says evolutionary psychologist Buss.
Maybe the pain stems from the fact that the loss of the relationship means that love is suddenly gone. Love beats rationality: it is what remains, even if there is no more reason to.
For Buss, the love is a matter of survival. This could be the reason why we always start from the beginning again and the suffering, that love brings with it so often.