There is no debate that love is an essential ingredient to happiness. It may not actually “make the world go round” (we are pretty sure that has something to do with… gravity?) but it has been, and continues to be, a point of fascination for authors, poets, researchers, and many more. This is probably due to the fact that it is an essential ingredient to a fulfilling life. In this article we explore some of the latest research into this field and give you the good, the bad, and the really cool news.

The Bad News

Breaking news: love is not eternal. Far be it from us to burst any bubbles, but according to research done by Barbara Fredrickson, PhD (Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and author of the book “Love 2.0,”), there is no such thing as “everlasting love,” at least physiologically speaking. This is not to say that love doesn’t create fierce loyalty and deep trust, it just means that our experience of love, the actual feeling of love, isn’t always present. In fact, it is quite fleeting, albeit powerful. This means that in order to “feel” love there needs to be an action that precedes that feeling. It could be an internal thought, but love doesn’t spontaneously occur. It needs to be generated. This may be most apparent in our long term relationships.

Over time, it is easy to begin to take our partners for granted and neglect them in small ways. We then notice that our connection is not as strong as it once was and so we take action to rekindle that feeling. The healthiest couples find a way to create moments of love habitually, so that it happens automatically in their day to day routines and their connection is sustained. However, sometimes those habits can fall prey to changing circumstances, like having kids, or a new job, or a change in routine. If you don’t adjust your practice, your connection will no longer be as strong. Unfortunately, changing the way we interact with our partner isn’t always the first priority, as we pointed out in this article, The Biggest Challenge Facing Relationships Today.

Here is PhD Barbara Fredrickson again, confirming this:

“The problem is that all too often, you simply don’t take the time that’s needed to truly connect with others. To the contrary, contemporary society, with it’s fast-changing technology and oppressive workloads, baits you to speed through your day at a pace that’s completely antithetical to connection.”

So, that is the bad news.

The Good News

The good news is that love may be easier to create than we commonly think. Most people associate love with finding that perfect person, “The One” we are destined to be with. Only then can a person truly experience what love is. Although the fantasy of that notion can be appealing, it is also a task that is, in reality, impossible. Think about it, there are 7.6 billion people in the world, if you were to truly find “The One,” wouldn’t you have to meet them all, just to make sure? If you could discover whether a person was “The One” in one day, and you met a new person every day, this feat would take 20 million years!

Thankfully, love, according to Barbara Fredrickson, is actually much more common than we think. Love is an emotion, the most important emotion for both physical and mental health, and she describes it like this:

“Love is the momentary upwelling of three tightly interwoven events: first, a sharing of one or more positive emotions between you and another; second, a synchrony between your and the other person’s biochemistry and behaviours; third, a reflected motive to invest in each other’s well being that brings mutual care. Her shorthand for this trio is positivity resonance.”

Another way she describes it is that, the Love IS connection.

What that means is that the feeling of love is actually quite easy to create. There needs to be some pre-existing conditions, but you can experience love with your partner, simply by taking the time to connect. This doesn’t even have to take a lot of time as love can exist in micro-moments of connection. Of course that is exactly what our App is designed to help with, and you can get notified of its release simply by providing your contact information.

That is the good news!

Something Really Cool

Love is a 2-for-1 phenomenon. Love is so powerful, one person experiencing it can literally change the other person’s mind. In the early 1990’s, Italian neurophysiologists Giacomo Rizzolatti, Giuseppe Di Pellegrino, Luciano Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi, and Vittorio Gallese discovered mirror neurons, meaning that our brains mirror an activity whether we are doing the behaviour, or just observing it. This was further expanded on by Uri Hasson of Princeton University who used functional MRI scans to show that when you are really engaged in communication with another person, your brain activity virtually synchronizes with the other person, and if you are really in sync, your brain will actually predict what the other person’s brain activity is about to do. (Insert graphic of mind being blown here… wait, you just did that for us didn’t you? Mirror neurons at work!)

What does this mean for love? It means that when you take the time to feel and express positive sentiments to your partner, your partner’s brain will mirror yours, and they will also experience the life-enhancing effects of those thoughts and emotions. You can literally gift love, simply by experiencing it yourself and connecting with your partner.

We think that is really cool.