Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

been abandoned and you come out of denial, the brain areas connected with despair light up.
    When you get dumped, your brain wants you to chase your ex even harder .
     
     
    When the participants in the studies viewed their former lovers’ pictures, it also triggered the dopamine system in the brain—the same system associated with pleasure and addiction. This did not happen when they viewed images of their friends. The brain images of those who were dumped also explain why the breakdown of a relationship can trigger serious health problems. When someone is past denial and thehappiness hormones such as dopamine disappear, they are replaced with chemicals that can lead to depression and can reduce the body’s immune system, triggering illness. The rule of thumb is that it takes about a month for every year of a past relationship for you to emotionally “get it out of your system” and for your hormones to return to their normal stress-free, healthy levels. So if a relationship lasted for, say, two years, it would take two months to get it out of your system and for you to feel you are over it. This explains why elderly people who lose a partner after fifty years of marriage may never recover from what is commonly known as a “broken heart.”

Summary
     
    In basic terms, sex drive is the result of a cocktail of chemicals released into the blood by the brain, which stimulates the production of hormones, primarily testosterone and estrogen. The circumstances you are under at the time can also trigger the brain to release these chemicals. For example, a particular song, a special smell, or a person who has certain physical features can trigger the chemical release. As we age, these hormone levels, particularly of testosterone, decrease. Testosterone injections have become common for older men and women with declining sex drives. We will discuss this more later, but it is important to understand that all romantic ideals, love feelings, and the highs and lows you may experience in new love are chemically linked and are not the mysterious, mystical meeting of souls that many people like to believe.
    Science is at last revealing things about romantic love, lust, sex, and attachment that have been shrouded in mystery and fantasy for thousands of years. This science is like a GPS for love in the brain. Some people become alarmed about this and say that this type of research removes the wonder and excitement of new love and romance. In fact, it does the opposite. By understanding why you are motivated to make the choices you make and by understanding that love has a scientific andbiological basis and is not a mystical force, you can better control your choices and improve your odds in the mating game in spite of the fact that your brain is hardwired the way it is. Instead of claiming, “My hormones made me do it,” you can take control of the wheel and decide where you’d like to drive. In addition to your biology, other forces are also at play, and you have significant control over these, which is what you will discover in the rest of this book.
    To not understand that love is a series of chemical reactions can leave you exposed to every love rat who comes along .
     
     
    When the first car GPS was introduced by BMW, some people protested that it took the fun out of driving and discovering new places. In fact, what the GPS really did was to stop people from becoming frustrated and angry, spending time pointlessly in dead-end roads, or driving down the wrong roads. It can be fun to be lost sometimes, but with new technology, you always have a backup plan in your pocket or purse, and that’s what’s coming in the next chapters.
    In essence, our sexual urges and drives have remained unchanged in hundreds of thousands of years.
Love, lust, romance, and sexual desire are all chemical responses triggered in the brain.
Science has proved that men and women view love relationships differently and that love is sited in completely