The Chemistry of Love

The Chemistry of Love

When sparks fly between two people, we’re quick to say they have “chemistry.” Not everyone realizes that such couples literally have do have chemistry–it’s what’s behind those sweaty palms, the jumpy stomach, thumping heart, and nervous jitters. Chemistry also contributes to that warm, comfortable feeling you get from being with a longtime partner.

In the mid-1960’s, psychologist Dorothy Tennov surveyed 400 people about what it’s like to be in love. Many of her respondents talked about fear, shaking, flushing, weakness, and stammering. Indeed, when human beings are attracted to one another, it sets off quite a chain reaction in the body and brain. But there’s a perfectly logical explanation to those intense feelings.

The most well-known love-related chemical is phenylethylamine — or “PEA” — a naturally occurring trace ammine in the brain. PEA is a natural amphetamine, like the drug, and can cause similar stimulation. This natural upper contributes to that kick-up-your-heels, on-top-of-the-world feeling that attraction can bring, and gives you the energy to stay up all night talking to a new love. Sometimes this energy translates into the triple-espresso jitters; other times it simply keeps you wide-eyed and alert long past the time when you’d usually be yawning. “I always get excited about somebody who can keep me up late at night,” says Elan Freydenson of New Jersey. “I really value my sleep.”

Feeling Dopey

You can also get a non-romantic dose of PEA from high-intensity activities like skydiving, or by eating chocolate. According to Chocolate.org, chocolate contains small amounts of our love drug, PEA. That might be why some people use chocolate as “comfort food,” getting the same warm, relaxed feeling from chocolate as others do from Mom’s chicken soup.

One of the substances released by PEA is the neurochemical dopamine. A recent study done at Emory University shows that female voles (small rodents) choose their mates in response to dopamine being released in their brains. When injected with dopamine in a male vole’s presence, the female will pick him out of a crowd later. Our love food, chocolate, also elevates levels of dopamine in the brain.

In turn, Dopamine stimulates the production of oxytocin, sometimes known as “the cuddle chemical.” Oxytocin is best known for its role in mothering, stimulating contractions during labor and aiding with breast feeding. According to BirthPsychology.com scientists now think that both genders release this nurturing hormone when touching and cuddling, with the oxytocin level peaking during orgasm.

Another euphoria-inducing chemical in your brain, norepinephrine, stimulates the production of adrenaline and makes your blood pressure soar when near the person you’re attracted to. That’s why you might experience a pounding heart or sweaty palms when you see someone you’ve got the hots for.

What The Brain Tells the Body

How do our emotions get translated into physical sensations? A U.S. News and World Report article explains the importance of the vagus, a nerve that threads through your whole body. It transports signals from your brain to your organs, “setting the heart pounding, making the stomach do flip-flops, and of course, lighting the loins on fire.” Everyone knows that jumpy, sort of sick feeling in your stomach. Some people call it a “hollow” feeling, while Elan Freydenson describes it this way: “That weird feeling falls somewhere between my belly button and my heart. It feels like tension building, yet it feels great and I want to have that feeling more often.”

Tennov’s group also reported “intrusive thinking,” where it seems like your brain is fixated on the object of your affection. When your heart rules your head, there’s actually one part of your brain running the other: the cortex is the area of your brain that controls logical thinking, while emotions are processed by the limbic system. When too many happy chemicals like PEA and dopamine flood your brain, they head straight for the limbic system.

When The Honeymoon’s Over

Some scientists believe that after a certain period, from 18 months to 4 years, one’s body gets used to these love stimulants. After building up a tolerance to uppers like PEA, passionate romances can cool into what Helen Fisher, author of “Anatomy of Love” calls “attachment.” In this phase of the relationship, your brain produces endorphins, brain opiates more like morphine than speed. “Unlike PEA,” says Fisher, “they calm the mind, kill pain, and reduce anxiety.” So what some people call “separation anxiety” might actually be a form of drug withdrawal.

The idea that the “honeymoon period” of a relationship is fueled by different brain chemistry than what is present during the mellower years that come later might explain why some people can’t seem to hold long-term relationships: they prefer the revving-up affects of brain amphetamines to the pain-killing effects of endorphins.

“Divorce rates peak around the fourth year of marriage,” says Charles Panati in his book “Sexy Origins and Intimate Things.” “The initial ‘highs’ of love have lost their chemical underpinnings Marilyn Monroe’s classic film “The Seven Year Itch” should be retitled ‘The Four Year Itch.”

Lynn Harris, co-creator of BreakupGirl.com wonders if it’s the other way around. “Relationships take work. They just do. And people get lazy after a while,” she says. “So do they get lazy because they’re getting immune to the chemicals, or do they get lazy because they just do…which triggers a decline in the chemicals?”

In the end, even hard-core scientists agree that chemistry isn’t everything. Culture, circumstances, personality, and scores of other variables help decide who turns your head and who leaves you cold. So don’t try to reproduce that lovin’ feeling in a basement chemistry lab–but do try your best to enjoy the natural highs that life gives you.

keeping the conversation flowing.

As far as interactions go, Juggler says something powerful in this regard. You’re the sun shining on all those around you. You’re warm, friendly and giving. People bask in your light. If they appreciate it, great, if not, great, there will be other people who will.

I think it’s always best to start with reality. So, above I discussed one technique of how to make powerful impressions. You yourself said it’s important to treat yourself kindly. I think that’s crucial. In fact I’d say that’s probably the most important thing of all, because once you treat yourself with kindness, you will pretty much automatically treat everybody else the same way. Kindness is very powerful.

But how to bring across your kindness in a specific interaction?

I’ll walk you through specific steps as to how to connect with women and people in general through specific skills as taught by Charismaarts:

First off, your VIBE — your PRESENCE

Think of what would make YOU comfortable. How would somebody have to behave around you to make you comfortable. Do that. Watch other people who are good at this. Learn by observation.

BODY LANGUAGE: Stand up straight, arms by your sides. It feels very vulnerable and uncomfortable at first but vulnerability is the point. If you’re standing there with arms crossed or all fidgety you’ll probably make her feel defensive and fidgety. If you’re vulnerable that shows strength. Only confident people allow themselves to be vulnerable. This may seem counter intuitive but go with me here.

EYE CONTACT: Look her in the eye when you say something to her. Don’t stare, but confidently look at her, especially when you’re listening.

SMILE: However, don’t be weird PERMA GRIN GUY. When you listen to her, stop smiling, just have a face of quiet expectancy, and look at her. When you speak be expressive and smile. The idea is to be dynamic.

Okay now as to SPECIFIC CONVERSATION SKILLS:

MAKE IT PERSONAL — – I Statements and YOU questions

What’s an I-Statement?

A major part of the Juggler method lies in making people comfortable enough to allow them to share their unique qualities. An instructor I know says: “Everybody’s interesting. It’s my business to bring that out in them”.

I’ll give you three specific ways on how do to that: I-Statements, OEQs and The Vacuum:

I-Statements: The idea here is that you share who you are and this will make people comfortable sharing who they are.

These statements are as SPECIFIC as possible and genuine. You talk in a relatable way about what you truly care about. Example: “I love skiing. I skied almost every day growing up. I love the feel of the wind in my face and the rush of the speed”. Here’s another one. “I enjoy walking in the surf. I like the feel of the cold water on my bare feet, the heat of the sun on my back and the salty air in my nose. It relaxes me.”

In both these statements she gets a feel for what kind of a person you are.

Next: OEQ (Open ended questions):

In order to find out about her you ask her OEQs. These questions are as GENERIC as possible: “How, what, why?”

Examples:
What do you like about basket ball?
How did that feel?
What’s Paris like?
Why?

If you share with her who you are through I-Statements and ask her Open Ended Questions chances are you’ll get to something that truly excites you and that you can SOI her on. So, there it is.

Oops, one last ingredient: The famous “Vacuum”.

After you ask a big question there may be a tendency on your part to fill in the empty space as she thinks about an answer. Don’t. Look at her with quiet expectancy. Look into her eyes to possibly build sexual energy. The vacuum is powerful. If she balks, just ask her a smaller question. i.e. “What do you think of traveling?” “Oh, I don’t know”. “Well, what was the last place you traveled to?” However, do not go on “questions trains”, meaning don’t keep asking questions. If you don’t get anything just answer your own question and either vacuum to see what she might want to say next or ask another OEQ.

I hope this helps.

One last thing to keep in mind: Have the conversation be about 50-50. You do 50 percent of the talking and so does she.

In that post I also addressed as to how to get out of the “Friend Zone” and make it sexual by SOI’ing a girl.

How to Communicate with your emotions

Here Is how it goes.

Facts—>Feelings—>Values—->Vulnerabilities.

So most of the time, people only get into light rapport because they keep describing facts, things that have an existence in the material world. “Oh, I went shopping this morning”, “I just bought a new car!”, “Did you see that new TV show yesterday?” etc. If you talk like this all the time it can get boring quickly, also you have to keep looking for new facts all the time, and you need to find facts that interest whoever it is you are talking to.

To go a little deeper, you can start talking about how you FEEL about a particular fact. “Oh, I went shopping this morning, I really love looking at the clothes, so many different colors!”, “I just bought a new car! Driving it made me realize how important it is to work hard in my job so that I can pay it off.”, “Did you see that new TV show yesterday? I laughed so hard at the little girl with the penguin on her head.” As you can see, you always have some kind of feeling about anything, so you can always do this with any fact that you start off with. Keep in mind that people tend to think about feeling whatever emotion you are describing, so you should prefer describing positive emotions, like happiness, or arousal, etc.

The next level is values. WHY do you feel whatever it is that you feel? “Oh, I went shopping this morning, I really love looking at the clothes, so many different colors! It’s amazing to me how many different perspectives there are in the world. I would never have imagined some of the shapes that I saw, that’s why I love new experiences, because you always learn something new, sometimes things that you never imagined ever existed before, for example, I remember the first time I fell in love, it was soo …” and on and on. I leave the other two as exercises for you guys. Post your answers in the responses. By the time you get to the values level, this is deep stuff. People brush down to the feelings level every now and then, it is rare for anyone to ever get down to the values level. If you are able to take her down here and keep her here for a while, she will never forget you.

One of the reasons why she won’t forget you is that she probably doesn’t quite know what her values are. That’s normal, almost no one does. Women in general however tend to be particularly confused. This is because the society matrix has imposed many contradictory values upon her, so she doesn’t know which values are important or whether she should be following them at all.

In order to get to the values level however, you need to know your own values. This is something that cannot be taught. You have to find them for yourself. Your values are uniquely YOURS, they can and should be at least a little different from others. Your choice of values will determine how effective you are at living life. For example, if you value focusing on your task until you get it done, you will probably do well. If you value never doing anything you might screw up in, you probably won’t. She wants to find a source of certainty in her life. If you have a good set of values and you believe in them strongly, and you can project that faith into her, if you get her to believe in you, she will follow you. No amount of money, no amount of sex appeal, will turn her away from you.

More about the even more important level of vulnerabilities some other time ..