LAURA: Has this ever happened to you?
You meet someone who changes your life. In fact, he or she becomes your life. You text every day, go out every weekend, pretty soon you’re practically living with each other. You can’t sleep, eat or think about anyone or anything else.
Jess: It’s just a like, I don’t know, like a glow around them or something. And you get the sweaty palms, and the butterflies in your stomach.
Veralyn: Would you compare it to an addiction?
Neoshe: Yes. Yes, completely. Like Ne-Yo songs, like Because of You, and stuff like that.
FX song: …Baby, you have become my addiction…
Anna: The extreme high that you have when you’re vibing with somebody, or think somebody’s amazing. That shit is like a drug. That’s a high right there.
FX song: …and it’s all because of you…
Carl: You wake up thinking about it. You think about it before you go to sleep. You think about it when you’re eating your food. It take over everything.
Neoshe: My heart was always racing. I would be nervous, but calm and collected.
FX song: ..cause it’s no good for me…
Jess: I do think that there’s a thin line between love and being addicted to a person. It’s a scary thin line, but it’s there.
FX song: I don’t know what to do and even if I did
Anna: And even if it drops for a second, if you have the illusion you can get it back, you’ll be addicted for sure.
FX song: ..taken by the thought of you….
LAURA: “I can get over this,” you tell yourself. Or, channeling your mother: “There are lots of other fish in the sea.”
Mom was right. Wasn’t she? Well, for most people, eventually. But the withdrawal can be hell. And now, scientists are beginning to understand why.
This is Sex. Really. I’m Laura Sessions Stepp and today we are talking to Helen Fisher, a researcher who is doing fascinating work on how and why love affects us so.
Laura: Helen, can you explain in just a couple of sentences for the non-scientists, what does a brain in love look like?
Helen : Well, every time you do or say or think anything there’s something going on in
the brain. There’re certain parts of the brain that are sucking up blood in order to get glucose and oxygen and other parts that are resting. And when you’re madly in love with somebody, there’s a lot that goes on in the brain, but there’s one little factory near the base of the brain called the ventral tegmental area, and a particular region of that brain factory becomes active when you’re feeling madly in love with somebody. And what’s going on in the brain is that little factory is making dopamine, which is a natural stimulant, and spraying that stimulant to many brain regions, including the reward system, the brain system for craving, for wanting, for motivation, for focus and for elation. So that rush that you get of elation when you feel in love is coming from this little factory near the base of the brain that’s making dopamine.
Laura: This kind of reaction can happen immediately when you first meet someone in a
bar or at a party. It can also happen gradually as you get to know someone. Is there a difference between that first meeting and something that builds up over time?
Helen : The brain system for romantic love is like the brain system for fear. If you get scared instantly, that’s a sensation. And when you get scared after months or years, that’s basically the same sensation. So this brain system can be triggered at any time.
Laura: What’s so fascinating to me is that we think we’re rational creatures and that we can decide whom we’re going to love, we can decide how our body is going to react, but that’s not always the case is it?
Helen : I would say that it’s rarely the case. I mean, we’re talking about one of the most powerful brain systems on earth. Stendhal once said: “Love is like a fever; it comes and goes quite independently of the will.” And that’s exactly what happens. When you’ve been rejected in love you can often love somebody even more when they’ve rejected you. And the last thing you want to do is love them more, you want to love them less, you want to walk out, you want to start forgetting about this person. But that brain system won’t quit. So you can fall in love at the most awkward times and remain in love at times that you really don’t want to. It’s very difficult to control. When I started doing my brain scanning, I really thought that this was an emotion or a series of emotions from high to low, but the parts of the brain that basically become activate are associated with motivation, with wanting, with craving. This is a basic human drive, like thirst and hunger, that evolved for very important reasons.
Laura: It relieves us of thinking we’re crazy.
Helen: Well, we are sort of crazy, but at least we know why we’re crazy.
Laura: At least we know partly why.
Helen: And we know that we’re not alone. And you do eventually get over it. We never forget, somebody who’s walked out on us. But finally the craving, the despair lifts and you go on.
Laura: What are the other physical symptoms besides just this feeling? You get sweaty palms, what else do you experience?
Helen: There’s a whole pile of things that happen when you fall in love with somebody. The first thing that happens is a person takes on what I call special meaning. As one man said: The world had a new center and that center was Mary Anne. Suddenly that person is the very center of your life. Every single thing about them is special and you focus on it. Their car is different from any other car in the parking lot because you’re focused on it. The street they live on, the music they like. You just focus on them. You feel incredible energy when things are going well. You can walk all night, talk till dawn. Real elation when things are going well, plummeting into despair when things are going poorly. A lot of physiological reactions: a pounding heart, sweaty palms. Real craving, intense craving to be with this person— and not just sexual craving. Sure, you’d like to have sex with them, but what you really want them to do is call, write, invite you out, tell you that they love you. There’s somebody camping in your head, you can’t stop thinking about this person day and night. A huge number of people when they’ve been rejected in love commit homicide or suicide or slip into a clinical depression.
Laura: No wonder we sometimes don’t want to fall in love because it takes us over.
Helen: There’s a lot of people that are afraid of it, and then of course they fall in love anyway. If it works out, they’re in glorious bliss. But I had predicted that when you are rejected, you would be even more in love with the person because any kind of barrier to romance intensifies the experience. Indeed, we found that. But we also found activity in three brain regions directly associated with addiction. We also found activity in a brain region associated with physical pain. And last we found activity in a brain region associated with deep attachment to the person. So you’re feeling deep attachment to the person, you’re in physical pain, you’re craving the person, and you’re madly in love with them, and they’ve just walked out on you. No wonder we suffer so!
Laura: You mention the couples in love, even after 20 years of being married.
Helen: Yes.
Laura: To me, having been long married, that was a very reassuring thing. That you can feel that love 20 years later.
Helen: Can you, personally?
Laura: Sometimes I do.
Helen: Sometimes. We put 17 people who reported that they were still in love, not just loving but in love, after an average of 21 years of marriage. Sure enough, we found activity in the same brain region – the ventral tegmental area – where we also found activity among those who had just fallen in love. So you can remain in love long term. The differences were extremely interesting. In the early stage intense romantic love, we also found activity in brain regions associated with anxiety and fear, whereas in those who were in love long term that was now replaced with activity in a brain region associated with calm. I think when you’re in love long term you still want to see the person, you still are interested in their day and sharing what you’re doing and thinking, you want them to come home, but you don’t fall into incredible anxiety when you don’t get an email from them. It’s replaced with calm. The more people I ask, the more people say to me that they can remain in love long term. But you gotta marry the right person, that’s for sure.
Laura: I’ve also read that you can do things with your partner that may produce some of those early feelings again.
Helen: Yes. Psychologists have found that when you do things together and then you answer questionnaires you do express more romantic love. But what I think is going on in the brain is you’re driving up the dopamine system. Any kind of novelty drives up dopamine in the brain, and dopamine system is associated with feelings of romantic love. This is why when people go on a vacation to some place new, you’re naturally driving up the dopamine in the brain and probably pushing you over the threshold into feeling feelings of intense romantic love. And on a vacation you’re more likely to have more sex, and any kind of sexual stimulation also drives up dopamine. And I would guess that a lot of these couples who report that they’re still in love after many years of marriage, are people who naturally come home with new ideas, go off and have adventures together. That’s important. If you want to stay in love, go do novel things together.
Laura: When there are signs that this addiction is becoming unhealthy, are there things you can do to make it less horrible?
Helen: Yes. I do think that romantic love is an addiction. I would even use the 12-step program that has worked so well for alcoholics and drug addicts and cigarette addicts. Get rid of the cards and letters, don’t write, don’t call, don’t run into this person. It’s like removing the alcohol from the kitchen table. Just remove the signs of this person so you’re not constantly triggering this brain system. Very often a person who’s leaving you feels very guilty and they want to remain friends. Tell them I can’t do that right now, I can’t remain friends with you; I’m in love with you. Maybe two years down the road, but for the moment, I need to have abstinence. The other things that I would do would be go out old friends that may trigger feelings of deep attachment. Get a lot of exercise, get some sunlight, keep moving. Don’t lie in bed or hole up and watch TV because there’s somebody camping in your head. You gotta get them out.
Laura: Fascinating work. I have one last question: Have you ever felt love addiction?
Helen: Oh my God, yes. But that’s not why I write my books. Yes, I’ve fallen in love many times in my life.
Laura: What in the world is it like, knowing what you know, to have it happen to you?
Helen: Well, first of all, I suffer just as much as everybody else does. No question about that. But I know why I’m suffering and I know that it won’t last forever, and maybe that’s a bit of relief. I think that all this studying of romantic love has really expanded my empathy for everybody in the world. I feel a tremendous continuity between everybody on earth. In fact, I look into a baby carriage and I say, “Oh boy, are you in for a ride.”
Laura: Thank you very much.
LAURA: Romantic love is a ride – a rollercoaster ride. Its chemical highs and lows remind us that we’re alive and connected to other human beings, even when we don’t want to be.
Not that long ago, love was considered the stuff of fantasies and sentimental women. Fisher and her colleagues are showing us that it’s more than that. Love sits right in the center of our lives. And it can move from a craving into a lasting attachment.
I’m Laura Sessions Stepp and this is Sex.Really. Tune in again in two weeks when we’re going to pay a visit to a “Pleasure Party,” where women learn how to get it on safely.
What Do You Think?