Falling in Love, Staying romantic

Mermaids & Pirates falling in Love
Illustration by Marina Wild

It happens to everybody. Just when you think it wont happen to you, it does. You see that someone and suddenly Cupid twangs an arrow in your rear and you fall head over heels in love. This is because weird and stunning things have happened in your brain, says Researcher Helen Fisher in positscience, drenching it “in chemicals that bestow focus, stamina and vigor’. It is this energy that can keep you up all night talking, singing, kissing, walking, talking, singing and kissing again.  

The same article also has interesting things about the chemicals that love produces in the brain. One of those pleasure chemicals is dopamine. However, if you produce too much dopamine through consuming junk food the pleasure response lessens – ‘a small slice of cheesecake once in a while may get your dopamine flowing, overdoing it may have negative consequences on your brain and on your waistline.’

Love is one of those wonderful things that has so many benefits as explained in womansday, including boosting the immune system, lowering our stress levels which in turn improves our skin tone, boosts our mental health and helps the heart.

And for those in long term relationships it is possible to keep re-igniting those chemicals that burst the banks of your brain when first you and your love fell for each other:  Date nights with novelty is how to do it. In a recent article in The New York Times, Dr. Aron a professor of social psychology suggested that going on regular dates was not enough. Instead ‘couples need to tailor their date nights around new and different activities that they both enjoy’ For more see: Reinventing Date Night

If you are looking for interesting dates, why not check out the events taking place during NUI Galway’s Múscailt Arts Festival

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Related article: (Gay?) Love and Marraige

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