What is love? 8 ways to know

What is love? 8 ways to know

We’ve all asked ourselves the question, “what is love?”

It’s one of the most perplexing of all of the human experiences.

It seems the more we learn about love, the more we don’t understand it. And we spend a whole lifetime learning more it.

The reality is that love can mean something different to everyone.

Neuroscience, however, can explain many of the common behaviour patterns people display when they have the feeling of “being in love”.

Do you want to learn more? Keep on reading for the 8 most common ways to know you’ve found it, according to neuroscientists.

What is Love?

First, what is love, according to neuroscientists?

It’s one of the most studied, but least understood, of all the human behaviours.

A major study over 20 years ago studied 166 societies and found evidence of romantic love in 147 of them. The conclusion of the researchers: “there’s good reason to suspect that romantic love is kept alive by something basic to our biological nature.”

The world-renowned anthropologist and expert on romantic love Helen Fisher has concluded that love is much more than an emotion. It operates at a level so deeply rooted in our biology that we struggle to control it:

“I began to realize that romantic love is not an emotion. In fact, I had always thought it was a series of emotions, from very high to very low. But actually, it’s a drive. It comes from the motor of the mind, the wanting part of the mind, the craving part of the mind. The kind of part of the mind when you’re reaching for that piece of chocolate when you want to win that promotion at work. The motor of the brain. It’s a drive.”

This biological drive takes over, and we experience love:

“But the main characteristics of romantic love are craving: an intense craving to be with a particular person, not just sexually, but emotionally. It would be nice to go to bed with them, but you want them to call you on the telephone, to invite you out, etc., to tell you that they love you.”

10 signs it’s love, according to neuroscience

Neuroscientists have started to identify the most common experiences of love.

Below, we share the 10 most common experiences in terms of people’s behaviours and what happens in the brain.

Is this what’s happening in your body and brain as you experience the emotion of love? It’s the best way to know whether you are truly experiencing love.

(If you’d like to learn about love from a modern-day shaman’s perspective, check out our free masterclass on love and intimacy.)

1) Love makes you feel addicted

When you feel like you’re in love, you can’t get enough of it.

There’s a reason for this.

Neuroscientists have established we respond to love in the same way we respond to drugs: once we’ve experienced it, we want more.

This is because love creates addiction. Thinking about the person you love triggers activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain, which releases a flood of the neurotransmitters dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin (dopamine is the so-called “pleasure chemical”) into the brain’s reward (or pleasure) centres—the caudate nucleus and nucleus accumbens.

This experience gives the lover an extraordinarily addictive high.

Love is considered an addiction for the simple fact that we can’t get enough of it. We seek love and adoration, acceptance and community at every turn in our lives.

The mix of affection, attraction, and arousal triggers fireworks in the brain.

A study found that once our brains have gotten a taste of something, it’s very hard for us to ignore it. Our brain will continue wanting to activate those feel-good chemicals, which is why love is sometimes described as an addiction.

This is also why break-ups can be so messy to deal with.

2) Love makes you feel obsessed

This common behaviour is really interesting.

Have you ever fallen in love and noticed that you’ve become obsessed with your partner?

There’s an explanation for this.

According to scientists, love triggers the parts of our brain that are also activated in the brains of cocaine addicts.

Additionally, the flood of dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin when feeling in love gives the body such an incredible high. Yet the body always seeks to be in balance. Therefore, when your body returns to a more balanced state, it gives the feeling of losing control.

All of these things contribute to having that addictive feeling.

3) Love will make you experience recklessness

If you’ve ever been in love, then you know the term “crazy in love” is a real thing.

Research confirms that we’re more willing to take risks when we’re in love.

The prefrontal cortex—the brain’s mechanism for logic and reasoning—drops a gear when we’re in love. At the same time, the amygdala—the warning us against threats—also works less.

The result of these effects is that we end up looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses. This makes us make less-than-ideal choices when our brains are preoccupied with love.

When we are in love, we have no need to be defensive, and we tend to see things from a positive point of view which stops us from questioning our actions, thoughts, and feelings, and it can leave us wondering what the heck just happened.

4) Love and lust can happen at the same time—and not necessarily for the same person

According to neuroscientists, love and lust appear to be separate (but overlapping) neural responses in the brain.

They both produce a “high”, they’re both “addictive”, but they’re different enough that they can coexist.

Here’s the most interesting fact:

They are distinct enough that you can lust after one person while being in love with another.

Obviously, this can cause real problems in a relationship if you love one person but lust after another.

However, you can use this knowledge to actively focus on the person you love so that you develop a stronger attachment to them. Over time, you’ll increase the presence of oxytocin and vasopressin in your brain, kicking the neural response of lust into gear.

5) The eyes are bigger than the heart

According to researchers, men and women behave differently when in love.

When a man is in love he is constantly on the lookout for visual cues of love. His visual cortex is more active when love is triggered in the brain, and he will continue to look for visual confirmation in his life that love is real.

Women, on the other hand, don’t require visual cues to know that they are in love or that they have a strong bond with someone.

They seem to rely more on inner feelings of love.

6) Love is a blur

It’s true that love can make you feel like you are flying on a cloud, or that everything in life is as it should be.

That’s because love can mess with your brain.

However, according to research, women who are in love tend to have an overactive hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that triggers memory keeping, as compared with men.

That’s why women are more likely to remember special dates and occasions, and why men are likely to forget to buy something for Valentine’s Day.

A key lesson for men in relationships: women remember almost everything!

7) Eye contact is the gateway to the heart

Have you ever gazed into your lover’s eyes and lost yourself for a moment?

Your brain is working really hard to process the information it receives from your eyes, and when you get “lost” in the eyes of another, your brain doesn’t know what to do with that information.

Newborns and lovers have this in common: they make eye contact to form an emotional connection.

Eye contact between lovers to form an emotional connection isn’t just a romantic notion. It’s a biological reality, according to researchers.

The connection that is made can solidify feelings of love and make it all the more real.

8) Promiscuity and monogamy are influenced by the chemicals in your brain

It turns out that if your partner has cheated on you, it might not actually be their fault. Some brains are wired to seek out love in any form it can get.

However, studies have shown that we can change our cheating ways by introducing higher levels of the “feel good” hormones like oxytocin, which allow us to be happy in our current love arrangement, rather than go looking for love in all the wrong places.

9. Physical connectedness

According to research, love hormones also contribute to the intense sexual chemistry between new couples.

Oxytocin along with vasopressin are also present in our bodies when we’re in love. These are hormones connected to nursing, mother-infant attachment, and pregnancy.

Also called the “cuddle hormone,” oxytocin is released during sex, right after the climax, to help couples develop a deeper social bond. It helps deepen feelings of attachment.

Oxytocin can also give feelings of contentment and security. However, vasopressin is a chemical associated with long-term and monogamous relationships.

The difference between the two chemicals may be the reason why passion fades as couples develop a stronger attachment to each other.

10. Love is blind

Believe it or not, there’s also a scientific basis to the old adage that “love is blind.”

When we’re in love, we deactivate the neural pathways associated with negative emotions—like judgment or fear.

Our brains process negative and positive emotions using two different neuropathways—the prefrontal cortex to the nucleus accumbens for positive emotions and nucleus accumbens to the amygdala for negative emotions. Love hormones tend to block the latter neuropathway.

So basically, the brain’s capacity to make critical assessments is lessened when we feel love towards someone.

How to tell if it’s love or lust, according to experts

Lust is part of the early stages of love. After all, you can’t fall in love with someone you don’t feel physically connected with.

However, in some cases, people don’t progress to love and just remain in lust with someone. Worse, it becomes an unhealthy obsession.

Here are some signs you might not be in love—but simply in lust—according to experts.

1. When your primary focus is the other person

Love can make you addicted to someone, especially during the early stages of a relationship. It’s part of the chemical process of falling in love.

However, if you’ve become obsessively focused on the other person, that they’re everything you can think of all the time, it’s no longer love.

According to psychologist and relationship expert Jonathan Marshall:

“When that other person becomes our raison d’être, it’s too much. When the other person becomes your god, when your inner compass gets lost in the relationship and in the other person, then I think you’re in trouble…

“Falling in love is a bit of a sickness because we go a bit insane, but if that insanity lasts for a long time, and you can’t find your inner compass, then I think that’s a sign it isn’t in balance.”

2. When their growth or independence threatens you

Real love is supportive. It’s about wanting the best for your partner, even if sometimes that doesn’t include you.

You know it’s only lust or obsession if the other person’s success as an individual scares you.

Matchmaking and relationship expert Rori Sassoon explains:

“When someone is obsessed with you, they [might not] like the idea of you growing as a person or having any independence. But in healthy love, each partner empowers one another to be the best version of themselves.”

If you love someone, you want them to be happy. And that involves letting them grow into a full and capable person.

3. When you’re overthinking every little thing

Our first encounter with love is normally riddled with anxiety and insecurity. It’s completely normal.

According to clinical psychologist Dr Amanda Zayde:

“It is important to note that everyone has some relationship anxiety, and that’s to be expected.”

However, it’s not healthy when the anxiety incapacitates you to so much extent.

Dr Zayde adds:

“However, if you find yourself hypervigilant for clues that something is wrong, or if you experience frequent distress that impacts your daily life, please, take some time to address it. Everyone deserves to feel secure and connected in their relationships.”

Real love gives you comfort and security. It doesn’t add to your insecurities.

4. Idealization

In the early stages of love, it’s natural to “idealize” a potential partner. We want them to be who we’ve always dreamed of.

Author and psychiatrist Dr Judith Orloff says:

“In the early stages of a relationship, when the sex hormones are raging, lust is fueled by idealization and projection—you see what you hope someone will be or need them to be—rather than seeing the real person, flaws and all.”

But often, when we really love someone, we come to accept them for who they really are—including the parts we don’t necessarily like.

If you find yourself idealizing your partner too much or you’re trying to make them somebody else, you know it’s not true love.

5. It’s all about the sex

Sexual chemistry is important in all romantic relationships. It’s not just crucial during the early phase of dating, but sex should be there to sustain intimacy, even when you’ve been together for years.

However, if it’s all about sex, then it might be just lust. Real love is about companionship, the meeting of the minds, and friendship, not just physical connection.

Dr Orloff adds:

“Pure lust is based solely on physical attraction and fantasy, it often dissipates when the “real person” surfaces. It’s the stage of wearing rose-coloured glasses when he or she “can do no wrong.”

Intense romantic love can last a lifetime

If you don’t believe that love can last a lifetime, you better believe it now.

According to a study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, it is rare but possible.

The researchers compared the active regions of people in long-term relationships to the brain activities of people who’ve just fallen in love.

And the surprising results indicate similar brain activities in both groups.

According to psychology researcher Adoree Durayappah:

“The key to understanding how to sustain long-term romantic love is to understand it a bit scientifically. Our brains view long-term passionate love as a goal-directed behaviour to attain rewards.”

If you want to sustain love for a long time, you need to keep doing things that trigger the reward system in our days.

Durayappah advises:

“As we move from early-stage love to long-term love, our bond attachment grows. And when we perform actions that make our partner happy, we enhance and maintain the relationship by working towards our goal of sustaining the rewards aforementioned.”

Takeaway

Whether you are falling in love for the first time or have been around the block a time or two, consider how your brain is actually controlling your experience of love.

We think that love comes from the heart, but the truth is that it is the result of a hard-working brain trying to make sense of the world we present to it on a regular basis.

Finding the person who is right for you can be difficult.

But when you do find them, you need to understand how your brain is impacting your relationship. Only then can you understand if you are experiencing true love or not.