Would you believe you can be head-over-heels in love with your companion, for life? That’s not the chatter of lovey-dovey romantics. It’s scientists.
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A new study found that the magic to holding onto the spark in your relationship is by keeping it alive in your mind. A study at New York’s Stony Brook University assessed men and women who professed they were yet “madly” in love with their companion, even after being together for over 20 years. Experts used MRIs to examine each person’s brain while they gazed at an image of their companion. The person also looked at a “control photo” of an {acquaintance|associate}. Then they compared their MRIs to brain scans of individuals who had fell in love inside the past year. The outcome? Both test groups’ brains looked absolutely alike when they saw their loved one’s photo, and lit up like crazy in a portion of the brain that generates the feel-good chemical dopamine. That’s the pleasure area of the brain that lights up when you |eat something yummy, make money, or snort cocaine.
So, if you’re missing that spark, can you get it back? Head researcher Dr. Helen Fisher says most definitely. She says you can get that “in love” sensation back by doing activities together that increase your dopamine levels, which merely means anything new, exciting, or challenging. That doesn’t mean you and your companion need to become rigorous cliff divers or load up on tattoos or piercings. It can be a little something from taking your dog to a new park every week, to arbitrarily selecting a dish out of a recipe book and cooking up a dinner with one another.