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Addicted to love FALLING IN LOVE RESEMBLES THE PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF COCAINE // HAILEY OSTERHAUS
After the bar closed one night, Jeffery Ridenour, Lawrence junior, found himself walking back to an apartment that wasn't his. He had just met an attractive guy, and they both decided to keep the night rolling by listening to music in a more intimate space.
When they arrived at the apartment, they sat on the couch slightly turned to each other in a "V" position. They started talking with concentration and the physical attraction started to eat away at both of them. Then the music and conversation was completely forgotten. "He touched my foot with his, and I asked him, 'Did you just touch my foot?' And, wham! We just started making out," Ridenour says.
The feelings that rushed through Ridenour at that moment were extreme, so extreme that they lingered after that night. He desperately wanted to date this fascinating guy. But unfortunately for Ridenour, the other guy wasn't on the same page as he was. "I think that I made myself like him." Ridenour says. "I sort of dreamed everything up and he didn't have anything to do with it."
And he's right. The mind can be dangerously powerful when it comes crushes or relationships. Even scientists are saying it's so powerful that you can become addicted to ideas of love, just like you can become addicted to a drug such as cocaine.
TAKING HITS OF LOVE
When considering the activity that goes on in the brain, falling in love is a lot like feeling high on cocaine. And when you've just had a bad breakup, it might seem as if you're going through withdrawal symptoms.
Helen Fisher, a nationally acclaimed biological anthropologist and research professor at Rutgers University, and her team of scientists have compared these sensations. They found that when you fall in love, a tiny place in your brain called the ventral tegmental area sends dopamine, a natural stimulant, to different areas of the brain. Similarly, when you feel the rush of cocaine, the brain does the exact same thing with dopamine. The release of this stimulant makes us feel special and rewarded. "It's associated with wanting, with motivation, with focus and with craving," Fisher says during a speech on the subject featured on ted.com. So when you're craving something such as food, love or drugs, and you finally get what you want, your dopamine levels in your brain become enhanced and it releases a good feeling inside of you.
When the research was conducted, Fisher and her research team took pictures of neural activity in the brain, called functional MRIs, of people in love and people who had just been dumped. After comparing the photos, they found that the activity looks almost exactly like functional MRIs taken of people experiencing the rush of cocaine.
FALLING INTO A BAD HABIT
Once we get a taste of love, we don't want to stop injecting ourselves with it. This is when love becomes a habit.
Jason Marquesee, Sioux City, Iowa, senior, says he was a romance junkie when he was a sophomore, and he knows what it's like to go through withdrawal. He met a girl in his hometown and they began dating regularly. But when summer came around she called off the relationship and moved to Germany for the season. "I was majorly depressed — debilitated to a degree," Marqueseesays. "I didn't want to talk to anyone, and I would just go home and lay on the couch wondering what I was doing."
When Marquesee's ex-girlfriend got back from Germany, he'd often return to Sioux City to visit his family and friends. During his visits, Marquesee and his ex would always start up their romance and then cut it off when Marquesee returned to the University. During this on-again-off-again relationship, Marquesee says, "She was like a source of pain wafting about you. And when it's around you all the time, then you're going to fall back into it."
It was like an addiction for Marquesee. He knew that the on-again-off-again relationship had to end, but he couldn't resist the rush he got when he reunited with his ex-girlfriend.
SHAKING THE CRAVINGS
Although these cravings for love are difficult to overcome, there are ways that you can suppress the addiction.
People who go though "love withdrawals" should focus on other relationships in their life, such as friendships and family, says John Wade, outreach coordinator and psychologist for Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at Watkins Health Center. If you don't seclude yourself to just one relationship then it will be less likely that you will fall into a relationship that resembles an addiction. "I think everybody is unique and has different needs and insecurities, but we should enter situations with our eyes open," Wade says.
Keep your eyes open and remember, don't do drugs, either. Jp
Photo illustration by Jerry Wang
Lines of love. Dopamine release, the brain's reaction to the sensations associated with infatuation, is the same as the brain's reaction to using illicit drugs such as cocaine.
When you fall in love, your brain produces dopamine, a natural stimulant.
Here are some other ways to make your brain release dopamine.
*Exercise often
*Eat oily fish or take fish-oil supplements
*Have a good laugh or cry
*Spend time in the sun
*Get lots of sleep
*Be social
*Take deep breaths when stressed
*Drink less booze
*Eat chocolate
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