Most of us learn the meaning of love through personal, family, or other experiences, but we also incorporate many ideas or concepts about love from other sources, for example, we constantly receive stereotypes about love through soap operas, movies. or songs on the subject.
In general, these sources of information have one thing in common: on the one hand, they speak of love as the exclusive ground of an individual, of the nearest and most loved ones; on the other hand, they expand the experience in time as something lasting, eternal, that is lived “forever”.
- Now advancing towards the scientific field.
- Dr.
- Fredrickson (Professor of Psychology and Director of the Laboratory of Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
- Explains that.
- According to positive psychology studies.
- We need to see love far beyond the optics of “romance.
- ” as a sum of micro-moments of connection with other people.
From this point of view, love is a micro-moment that develops mainly in the brain, in which two people establish a particular connection, is a group of neurons that, for a moment, is reflected in those of another nearby brain, producing substances in the body that awaken feelings of well-being and the desire to generate well-being in another person.
Looking at love from this new perspective, and very briefly, we can make some statements about true love and what it generates in us:
We tend to believe that the most common and true thing is to love a person, but research suggests that those moments when one brain communicates with another, or with more than one at a time, exist in human beings in general and are not limited to living with one person, if we believe in this capacity, we can live love as a general quality that connects us to the rest of humanity.
While we can live this emotion with many other people, we may decide to have a relationship with someone special, between this person and us there must be thousands of micromoments that can be encouraged and revived, that give consistency and sustainability to the relationship.
Eye contact is fundamental to the neural connection necessary for love to occur, in societies where this contact is avoided or form of relationship there is a lot of individualism and coldness, looking into the eyes is fundamental to generating loving and friendly relationships between individuals.
There is a physiological connection between the heart and brain, the so-called vagus nerve, which benefits greatly from the experiences of micro moments of love, who are able to increase their moments of love live longer and healthier lives thanks to chemicals. exchanged during them.
In fact, relationships occur both ways, people with good physical health are better able to establish micro moments of love with the people around them, are people able to produce a virtuous circle of health?Health that leads us to the ability to enjoy life for the maximum.
Many people generally believe that we connect with others and that we love them “for no reason” because, as Blaise Pascal says, “the heart has reasons that reason does not know”. However, it is very interesting to know what science is starting. to reveal about love. With these discoveries, we know an unconventional vision that breaks with traditional prejudices, romantic and limited ideas of love, this great unknown.
Learn more about Barbara Fredrickson and her book Love 2. 0 at: http://www. positivityresonance. com.
Image courtesy of Joshua Resnick.