30 Crazy Things Scientists Say About Love

• Men who kiss their wives in the morning live FIVE YEARS LONGER than those who don't.

• Scientists suggest that most people will fall in love approximately seven times before marriage.

• Some individuals who claim never to have felt romantic love suffer from hypopituitarism, a rare disease that doesn't allow a  person to feel the rapture of love.

• Getting dumped often leads to "frustration attraction", which causes an individual to love the one who dumped him or her even more.

• Reports suggest that the liquid that surrounds the sperm contains dopamine ("the pleasure chemical") and norepinephrine as well as tyrosine, an amino acid the brain needs to manufacture dopamine. When a person falls in love, the ventral tegmental area in the brain floods the caudate nucleus with dopamine. The caudate then signals for more dopamine; the more dopamine, the higher a person feels. The same system becomes activated when someone takes cocaine.

• When someone looks at a new love, the neutral circuits that are usually associated with social judgement are suppressed...still wondering why it is said that love is blind?

• The apple has historically been the ultimate symbol of love and sexual desire.

• A study of college students who had just been rejected by their sweethearts showed they had strong activity in the brain associated with the insular cortex, the part of the brain that experiences physical pain...

• Antidepressants may compromise romantic love because they enhance serotonin levels. Higher serotonin levels blunt emotions and inhibit obsessive thoughts about the lover, both crucial components of love.

• Some psychologists argue that we fall in love with someone who is similar to the parent with whom we have unresolved childhood issues, unaware we are seeking to resolve this childhood relationship in adulthood.

• Studies show that if a man meets a woman in a dangerous situation (and vice versa),such as on a trembling bridge, he is more likely to fall in love with her than if he met her in a more mundane setting, such as in an office.
• Mystery or "the chase" is often a critical element in romantic love. Sometimes called the "Romeo and Juliet effect", a situation with challenges or obstructions is likely to intensify one's passion for a loved one.

• Men and women with highly symmetrical faces tend to have more lovers to choose from. Additionally, men with symmetrical faces begin to have sex four years earlier, have more sex, and have more affairs than their lopsided peers. Women also tend to have more orgasms with symmetrical men.

• Timing significantly influences love. Individuals are more likely to fall in love if they are looking for adventure, craving to leave home, lonely, displaced in a foreign country, passing into a new stage of life, or financially and psychologically ready to share themselves or start a family.

• Women around the world are more likely to fall in love with partners with ambition, education, wealth, respect, status, a sense of humour and who are taller than they are. Women also prefer distinctive cheekbones and a strong jawbone, which are linked to testosterone levels. During ovulation, women become even more interested in men...

• Men in love show more activity in the visual part of the brain, while women in love show more activity in the part of the brain that governs memory. Scientists speculate that men have to size up a woman visually to see if she can bear babies, while women have to remember aspects of a man's behaviour to determine if he would be an adequate provider.

• Scientists suggest that merely staring into another person's eye is a strong precursor to love. In an experiment, strangers of the opposite sex were put in a room together for 90 minutes where they talked about intimate details and then stared into each other's eyes without talking. Many felt a deep attraction for each other, and two married each other six months later.

• The urge to fall in love is like sex and hunger, a primitive, biological drive.

• The longer and more deliberate a courtship, the better the prospects for a long marriage. People who have intense, Hollywood-type romances at the beginning are more likely to divorce.

• New research suggests that passionate love does not always decline over time. In addition to exhibiting intense activity in the ventral tegmental area of the brain similar to those in the early stages of love, brain scans also show activity in the ventral pallidum, a region associated with feelings of long-term attachment, and in the raphe nucleus, which is responsible for higher serotonin levels, which lead to calmness and less obsession.

• Love is not necessarily a guarantee that a marriage will last. Other factors include a couple's age ( a husband who is nine or more years older than his wife or  who marries before the age of 24 is more likely to divorce), those who are in their second or third marriage, those who had a child before marriage, and finances. Factors not pertinent to success of marriage are the number of children or their ages, the wife's employment status, and the number of years a wife has been employed.

• Romantic love lasts just over a year, perhaps because the brain cannot eternally maintain a revved-up state of romantic bliss. As romantic love wanes, attachment love--a more stable love sets in. To keep the passion alive, experts suggest doing satisfying and exciting activities as a couple.

• High levels of testosterone may suppress oxytocin and vasopressin (chemicals associated with attachment love), which may explain why men with higher testosterone levels tend to marry less often, be more abusive in their marriage, and divorce more. When a man holds a baby, his testosterone goes down, perhaps as a result of increased oxytocin and vasopressin.

• Women often fill loved when talking face to face with their partner; men, on the other hand, often feel emotionally close when they work, play or talk side by side.

• To remain in love for a lifetime, therapists advise couples to listen actively to your partner, ask questions, give answers, appreciate, stay attractive, grow intellectually, include your partner, give him/her privacy, be honest and trustworthy, tell your mate what you need, accept his/her shortcomings, give respect, never threaten to leave, say "no" to adultery, don't assume the relationship will last forever, and cultivate variety.

• Men are more likely than women to be more flexible in their romantic choices when they are looking for short-term relationship--though when they want a long-term mate, they become pickier about basic virtues.

• Couples around the world who divorce tend to divorce around their fourth year of marriage. After four years, marriages generally stablise until around eight years.

• Being in love creates high levels of dopamine and norepinephrine. The despair associated with unrequited love is associated with plummeting levels of dopamine. To increase dopamine, rejected lovers should exercise. Sunlight is another mood lifter, and smiling also activates nerve pathways that can give feelings of pleasure.

• One of the greatest predictors of love is proximity. Physical closeness leads to increased emotion, and it is not unusual to hear stories of bosses falling in love with their secretaries. On the other hand, scientists now think that at a critical time in childhood (sometime between ages 4-6), boys and girls who live in close proximity lose ability to fall in love with each other, perhaps preventing the destructive act of mixing DNA with kin.

• On average, men around the world marry women who are three years younger than themselves. In the United States, men who remarry usually choose a wife five years younger; if they wed a third time, they often marry someone eight years younger than themselves... that is, the MORE a man remarries, the more he will go for YOUNGER THINGS!

• Studies show that the risk of a "secret love" being revealed heightens romantic feelings for the partners as it increases the levels of phenylethylamine (PEA).