The bliss, the euphoria, the feeling that nothing can bring one down are all familiar signs that one has truly fallen head over heels in love…or is as high as a kite. The familiarity struck researchers at Stanford as well:
“We wanted subjects who were feeling euphoric, energetic, obsessively thinking about their beloved, craving their presence," Sean Mackey, a co-author on the paper, said. "When passionate love is described like this, it in some ways sounds like an addiction. We thought, maybe this does involve similar brain systems as those involved in addictions."Sure enough, when those in the throes of early passion were monitored by brain scans while being subjected to mild doses of pain, pictures of their loved ones blocked the sensations using the same parts of the brain as cocaine and morphine. When the same subjects were tested using distractions rather than “love,” cognitive areas of the brain worked to lessen the pain, but not to the same degree.
Guess the headache excuse really is a sign the magic is gone.
Full story at Guardian.