- In writing the book "Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become," here are 10 lessons I have learned:
1. It can be hard to talk about love in scientific terms because people have strong pre-existing ideas about it.
The vision of love that
emerges from the latest science requires a radical shift. I learned that
I need to ask people to step back from their current views of love long
enough to consider it from a different perspective: their body's
perspective. Love is not romance. It's not sexual desire. It's not even
that special bond you feel with family or significant others.
And perhaps most
challenging of all, love is neither lasting nor unconditional. The
radical shift we need to make is this: Love, as your body experiences
it, is a micro-moment of connection shared with another.
Barbara Fredrickson studies positive psychology.
2. Love is not exclusive.
We tend to think of love
in the same breath as loved ones. When you take these to be only your
innermost circle of family and friends, you inadvertently and severely
constrain your opportunities for health, growth and well-being.
In reality, you can
experience micro-moments of connection with anyone -- whether your soul
mate or a stranger. So long as you feel safe and can forge the right
kind of connection, the conditions for experiencing the emotion of love
are in place.
3. Love doesn't belong to one person.
We tend to think of
emotions as private events, confined to one person's mind and skin.
Upgrading our view of love defies this logic. Evidence suggests that
when you really "click" with someone else, a discernible yet momentary
synchrony emerges between the two of you, as your gestures and
biochemistries, even your respective neural firings, come to mirror one
another in a pattern I call positivity resonance. Love is a biological
wave of good feeling and mutual care that rolls through two or more
brains and bodies at once.
4. Making eye contact is a key gateway for love.
Your body has the
built-in ability to "catch" the emotions of those around you, making
your prospects for love -- defined as micro-moments of positivity
resonance -- nearly limitless. As hopeful as this sounds, I also learned
that you can thwart this natural ability if you don't make eye contact
with the other person. Meeting eyes is a key gatekeeper to neural
synchrony.
5. Love fortifies the connection between your brain and your heart, making you healthier.
Decades of research show
that people who are more socially connected live longer and healthier
lives. Yet precisely how social ties affect health has remained one of
the great mysteries of science.
My research team and I
recently learned that when we randomly assign one group of people to
learn ways to create more micro-moments of love in daily live, we
lastingly improve the function of the vagus nerve, a key conduit that
connects your brain to your heart. This discovery provides a new window
into how micro-moments of love serve as nutrients for your health.
6. Your immune cells reflect your past experiences of love.
Too often, you get the
message that your future prospects hinge on your DNA. Yet the ways that
your genes get expressed at the cellular level depends mightily on many
factors, including whether you consider yourself to be socially
connected or chronically lonely.
My team is now
investigating the cellular effects of love, testing whether people who
build more micro-moments of love in daily life also build healthier
immune cells.
7. Small emotional moments can have disproportionately large biological effects.
It can seem surprising
that an experience that lasts just a micro-moment can have any lasting
effect on your health and longevity. Yet I learned that there's an
important feedback loop at work here, an upward spiral between your
social and your physical well-being.
That is, your
micro-moments of love not only make you healthier, but being healthier
builds your capacity for love. Little by little, love begets love by
improving your health. And health begets health by improving your
capacity for love.
8. Don't take a loving marriage for granted.
Writing this book has
profoundly changed my personal view of love. I used to uphold love as
that constant, steady force that all but defines my marriage. While that
constant, steady force still exists, I now see our bond as a product of
the many micro-moments of positivity resonance that my husband and I
have shared over the years. This shakes me out of any complacency that
tempts me to take our love for granted. Love is something we should
re-cultivate every single day.
9. Love and compassion can be one and the same.
If we reimagine love as
micro-moments of shared positivity, it can seem like love requires that
you always feel happy. I learned that this isn't true. You can
experience a micro-moment of love even as you or the person with whom
you connect suffers.
Love doesn't require
that you ignore or suppress negativity. It simply requires that some
element of kindness, empathy or appreciation be added to the mix.
Compassion is the form love takes when suffering occurs.
10. Simply upgrading your view of love changes your capacity for it.
The latest science
offers new lenses through which to see your every interaction. The
people I interviewed for the book shared incredibly moving stories about
how they used micro-moments of connection to make dramatic turnarounds
in their personal and work lives.
One of the most hopeful
things I learned is that when people take just a minute or so each day
to think about whether they felt connected and attuned to others, they
initiate a cascade of benefits. And this is something you could start
doing today, having learned even just this much more about how love
works.
Original article:
