Relationships September 20, 2017
Some things you just can't help but feel.
Are you a hopeless romantic who believes in love at first sight? If you are, you aren’t alone. Scientists believe in it, too.
Here are what scientist have to say about love at first sight and what happens to you when you find that person who makes you feel gushy inside from the moment you lay eyes on them.
Stephanie Cacioppo, head of the Department of Psychology’s High Performance Electrical Neuroimaging Lab at the University of Chicago, examined exactly what happens to your neurons when you fall in love.
Cacioppo says 12 areas of your brain work together to release chemicals and hormones that cause the feeling of falling in love. This all happens in just a fifth of a second and the release of the chemicals and hormones expose you to feelings similar to that of euphoria-inducing drugs. Basically, you’ll feel like you’re on a love high.
Because of this, scientists report that all humans are genetically wired to be able to fall in love at first sight. It’s not just for “the lucky ones.” It can happen to you – on a good day, bad day or go-grocery-shopping-to-buy-tampons-and-go-straight-home day.
When you’re in love, you might feel the urge to want to bond and know everything about that person. And you know how they say love is a drug? Well, it kind of is.
According to Psychology Today, when you’re heading off to cloud nine, the part of your brain that controls dopamine release, the ventral tegmental area (VTA), is triggered. The VTA sends a ton of dopamine, the “pleasure chemical,” to the brain’s reward centers, the caudate nucleus and nucleus accumbens. Thanks to this, you feel high, similar to the way you’d feel on narcotics.
And it’s pretty addictive.
When you look into their eyes, your stomach begins to hurt, but in a good way.
You get nervous and begin to get all jittery when you start to speak. The butterfly feeling are always there. From the moment you see them until you go home. Sometimes you get them so bad they never actually go away.
If you’re the kind of person that falls for someone instantly, you probably don’t have a “type.”
Having a “type” means having distinctive qualities that you look for when it comes to dating and falling for people. An example of a “type” would be looking for a partner who is tall with blue eyes. Or perhaps you’re attracted to people working in a particular profession.
Love at first sight, on the other hand, is being able to let these “requirements” go.
You can’t stop thinking about them. From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, they’re the only thing that seem to be on your mind.
It may even get to the point where you can’t function without thinking about them or talking to someone about them. And this happens even if you just met the person.
Love at first sight is pretty intense, no?
If these things have been giving you an “aha” moment, then you probably have experienced love at first sight without realizing it. It’s crazy to think that you can fall in love with someone by just looking into their eyes.
But it’s possible. Science says so.
