crazy silly love. Why is it that falling in love makes us so ridiculous, especially in areas where we usually think we're so smart. And we're not just talking metaphorically, we're talking our literal brain chemistry deteriorating when we fall in love.
I'm Sarah Wendell.
I'm Alicia Rai Welcome to love struck daily, where we bring a love story to your years every single day. I'm in love with that love with you.
Alicia is falling in love affected your brain? Yeah. No, I have been through falling in love brain. And I've been through pregnancy brain and I can tell you there are some similarities.
Hmm. And I think like pandemic brain is also there somewhere. Yeah,
cognitive exhaustion brain is definitely a thing.
Like I was talking to my editor the other day. And I said, I don't know why I can't get this like one part of my book to work with a big, like, kind of conflict part. Basically, the book, I can't get the book to work. And she goes, Well, it's probably because you're in love. And we both kind of laugh. But now I think it's real. I think it's because I'm, I think it's because I'm happy. And I'm in love. And I can't write any kind of conflict anymore at the moment. Because, you know, I just want to like write rainbows and puppies.
One thing I've noticed is, when one of my children has had a crush, and their experience having a crush for the first time, a crush can make you so silly,
and like incapable of doing like regular things that you normally do, utterly
filled to the brim with big emotions and emotions. I mean, people sort of have this expectation that when you're an adult, you have control over your feelings all the time. Oh, no, no, no. I have less control. Yeah, but I am fascinated by the idea of what your brain does, and the idea of your brain and love, which is cool, because today we are going to be chatting with a literal expert on what your brain is doing when your brain is in love. Dr. Saundra longest law is one of the researchers on a famous study about why we temporarily can't talk or we say things we don't mean and a whole host of other silly silly things when we are falling in love. Dr. Lawless law is a neurocognitive expert who specializes in how infatuation affects our brains. Please welcome Dr. Sandra
longest law welcome Dr. Longo slough is so nice to talk to you. I am so excited to hear about your research. Can you tell me about what you're studying? Yeah. So
thanks so much for having me. I'm very excited to be on this show. I study the neurocognition of emotion and motivation in general and of romantic love. In particular,
what led you into this field? What led you into this research?
Already? Before I started studying psychology, I knew I wanted to study biological psychology because I was always very interested in you know, biology, chemistry, physics, math. And then in the months before I started going to college I was broken up with by my then high school boyfriends, I was very heartbroken for several months. And then I fell in love with someone else. Until then I was head over heels in the few weeks before I started going to college. And so I just was thinking what's happening? Why am I so, so sad? And then so happy what's happening in my brain. And then whenever I had to write a paper for any course, in my psychology degree, I was always trying to see like, can I make this somehow about romantic love. So then I would write the paper for the class. And that's how I found out that there was not a whole lot of research available on the neural basis of romantic love. And so that's when eventually I thought, you know, maybe then I should go do that research. And so here we are. So I study how romantic love affects cognition. So how it affects the way we think how it affects our attention, and our memory, and money. Also study how cognition affects our love feeling. So if we can change our love, we are by thinking certain things.
Can we change how we feel by thinking certain things? Can we change how we feel with our thoughts? Yes, that that was? Yep.
So while there's actually a large literature about emotion regulation, which shows that you can think certain things and that changes how you feel you can make your emotions more or less intense. And I've applied that same idea to love and while I've shown that people think it is very difficult or maybe even impossible, or even undesirable to change how in love you are, people can actually do it in the lab so they can make themselves slightly more in love, or slightly less in love by thinking certain things. Wow. And so there's also a lot of different hormones and a lot of different neurotransmitters that are involved. And not there's not a single love hormone or single Love neurotransmitter. I have also shown that people have better attention and better memory for information it has to do with their beloved, which makes sense. Because if it has to do with your beloved becomes very emotional to you, right? And then I'm also doing research on how being in love distracts you from doing other stuff. So if you're thinking about your beloved all the time, are you then maybe not paying enough attention to your work or your homework? Wow. So
how do you study that? What is the process of doing that research? Because I imagine you need to have some people and also their feelings.
Yes. So it varies. It varies a little bit between studies where we typically recruit people that are in love by self reports. We often would like to study people that have recently fallen in love, because that's the time when infatuation or passionate love is most intense. It tends to decrease over time, you know, butterflies go away eventually. So we we ideally, test people within the first six months, that's sometimes difficult to get enough people. So sometimes we stretch it to like the first one and a half years of falling in love.
So what are some of the questions and tasks of your research? What are you having people do to explore this connection.
Also, for example, for the research that involves, like, does love distract you from other stuff, we use Stroop, like tasks. And I think people may have actually already heard about the stroop task. So the stroop task is a task in which you present words like yellow and red and green, but when you print them in a certain color, and if the word says green, and the ink is green, then people can easily say the ink color is green, that's very easy. But if you present the word yellow in green ink, then people find it really difficult to say this is green ink, because they are more inclined to read the Word and say yellow. And so this is a task that requires a lot of what we call cognitive control. It's very difficult to ask your initial sort of automatic responses to read the word, but we're asking you to say the ink color. And so we have used tasks like that, to see how love influences cognitive control.
How do you bring the love into the question? Like do you have a pictures of their their person? Or do you have like a scent? Like how do you? How do you incorporate the idea of their love emotions into this experiment?
Yeah, so in one study, we had a love induction task. So we had them write about romantic encounter, we had them listen to a love related song that they picked, they picked, they brought it with them to the lab. So to get them in this romantic mood. So these were people that were in love. But when we then we sort of induced the romantic mood before they did a task. But then in another study, we just recruited people that were in love, and then just made them do the task. So what were some of the results? Yes, when one study we found, the higher people scored on the love questionnaire. So the more in love people were, the worse they did on that stroop task. So the longer it took them to read the to say the ink color, because they were so distracted by the word meaning.
So the emotions that they sort of carry with them, distract them from very intense cognitive tasks.
Yeah, yep. And the idea is, although we we couldn't really test that. But the idea is that, because in other research, I've shown that people on average report to think about their beloved, I think it was 65% of the time, with the the most extreme score being 93% of the time. So people are thinking about their beloved, almost the entire time that they're awake. And you know, that takes up a lot of cognitive energy and cognitive effort. Yeah. And so the idea is that if you're thinking about your beloved all the time, you have less resources left to do the tasks that we're asking you to do.
Yeah, absolutely. What have you learned from your research in your own life? Is that if that's a fair question to ask you as a researcher, yeah,
well, so this is interesting, because sometimes people are opposed to the idea of studying law, because they say, you know, it's such a magical thing. And if we're gonna study it and understand it, then that takes away from the magic, which I can tell you, it doesn't. So I can still be very much in love or very heartbroken, even though I have, although only a slight understanding of how it works. But you know, it does put it in perspective. So, you know, I can use some of the love regulation strategies that I have tested in my research and that have found to be effective for becoming more in love or less in love. So I have definitely tried to apply that to my daily life as well.
What are some of the love regulation strategies? That sounds fascinating?
Yeah, so one thing that works for increasing love feelings is thinking about the positive aspects of Your Beloved, or the relationship or the future. So if you think about you know, they're so funny or They're so handsome or they're so smart, or you know our relationship we're so good together we have the same hobbies are the same. values, and then thinking about positive future scenarios. So we may get married and live happily ever after, then that will increase love feelings for for your beloved. Now on the flip side thinking negatively about your beloved or the relationship or the future, decreases love feelings. So you know, thinking they're so lazy or you know, they never bring me flowers or, or the relationship like we fight a lot, or you know, we may get married, but then we'll probably get a divorce, like so many people that decreases love feelings, right? And that I thought would be helpful for people who are heartbroken. Yeah. So I was testing, you know, people that were upset about a breakup, and does that make them feel better? And, yes, it decreases love feelings, but it made them feel worse, which is not what I expected. But I found that in two different studies, the first time I was like, well, maybe that was a fluke. And then I did it again, again, and they found it again, I was like, Nope, this is really happening, I can make them feel slightly less in love. But now I also made them feel worse instead of better. But then I also found another strategy called distraction. So thinking about things completely unrelated to your beloved, made them feel better. So that did not change how in love they were, but it made them feel less unpleasant.
So what you're saying with this research is that if you've gone through a breakup, and you start thinking about all the negative things about your ex, you will decrease your feelings of love. But you will also feel pretty crappy. Is that partly because you've realized, Oh, I've spent time with a crappy person? Or is it? Is it just recognizing human fallibility? Like, do you do you know, the connection there?
I don't but but I think what you're saying is, is probably partly right. So you know, if if I now ask you all the things why your ex was terrible, you might think why was it even with that person? What does this say about me? Yeah, so that's one option. Another option is that maybe, you know, they're just unpleasant thoughts you're getting about all these unpleasant memories. And so that may just make you feel unpleasant. Yeah. But I think in the long term, I think it may be helpful to cope with the breakup to sort of get over it quicker. So what I think people should probably do is think negatively about their ex, and then go distract themselves to feel better.
So think of all the things that are terrible. And then think about things that are pleasant, completely unrelated to their ex.
Exactly. Yeah, go do something fun and think about all their stuff after then feel okay. Brains are
so cool. Yeah. So what is the the hope for this research? What can you do with it moving forward? What can you do with it in the future? Because I have this vision of like an app to help you get over a really bad breakup,
right? Yeah, that's a great question. So my research is what's called fundamental research. And that means it's driven by curiosity. And then there's another form of research that's called Applied Research in which you create new products, you know, better batteries, for example, or you you design treatments develop treatments for certain disorders, which and the yellow, it's very obvious to see the usefulness of applied research, it's harder for people to see the usefulness of fundamental research. But fundamental research, you cannot do applied research until you've done the fundamental research first course. So I hope that someone else will take my findings and will actually try to, you know, develop it into, you know, what can you do in therapy, to do help people get over a breakup or help people be less distracted when they are in love. So ultimately, I hope that my research contributes to increasing the positive effects of love and decrease in the negative effects of love. And then distraction is probably a negative effect, even though people themselves may not may not care. But their, you know, teammates or their employer may be annoyed, if you are so in love that you're not focusing on your homework or your work. But also, you know, breakups, it could really benefit people if I think if they have a way to cope with them.
So it sounds like not only is their application potentially for people who have been through a bad breakup to learn how to sort of redirect their, their cognitive impulses with distraction. But it also, it also sounds like it would be helpful to people who are in a relationship, to think about the person that they love in a positive way to sort of create a sort of a buoyancy for their emotions to continue. Yeah, because we
know love feelings decline over time. And a lot of breakups are caused by that decrease of love. So people will say, you know, we're not fighting no one cheated on anyone. But you know, we're like, brother and sister you love Yeah. Right. Exactly. And, and in that situation, yes. Increasing love feelings may may really help and may help people to stay together.
I mean, I've been married for almost 22 years, and I know for myself with my husband, the strength of the feelings can flex a little bit. Sometimes they're very intense. And sometimes, you know, it's the only thing I can think about is how awesome he is. And sometimes I'm like, yeah, he's there. And it's great. That's good. Good to go. Do my job now. So that sort of leveling up and down. That's, that's normal.
Yeah. So that's perfectly normal for it to go up and down, but it's it can help people I think if they feel some control over their love feelings, they feel like it's not, you know, just happening to them, but they can tweak them a little bit. You know, the strategies I use in my research. They're not on and off switches. So it's not like you think this one thing and now it's your love feelings are on or off, but it's something you can sort of slightly modulate your love intensity.
This has been so fascinating. I my brain is so happy right now. Thank you so much for speaking with us. This has been so interesting. So interesting. As we as we wrap up, what advice would you have for someone who is feeling a little overwhelmed by their their love emotions? Well, so
I guess, you know, because my research has also shown that people think other people can regulate their love feelings, but they themselves can. Everybody else so. Right, exactly. So if anything, you know, you are not a playball of your love feelings, specifically, or emotions in general, right? You have some control over it. And again, it's not an on or off switch. But you have some control. So you don't have to just all let it happen. Yeah.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about your research. This is absolutely fascinating. I really, really appreciate your time.
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Thanks for your interest in my work. Is there anywhere people can go to read more about what you're doing? Yeah. So so my lab is called the neurocognition of emotion and motivation lab or N E M lab at the University of Missouri St. Louis. So if you Google any M lab, you'll find my websites and you can take it from there.
Thank you so much for your time. This has been absolutely fascinating.
Great, thank you.
So Alicia, now that we have learned what amazing powerhouses, our brains are, which I mean, you write great books, I already knew this about your brain. What is your love to go for today?
But one thing that really stuck out to me was when you feel attachment for someone, you are less likely our brains are less likely to slow down after we make an error. Because you feel secure and you feel comfortable. And you feel like okay, I can make errors without getting into too much trouble. Yes. Which I think is wonderful and lovely. But I also think that just because we're comfortable and attached to somebody we know they're not going anywhere. I think it's still important to keep those things in mind. You know, like if you if you fumble a little bit with them forget a birthday or something. You're just like, Yeah, whatever, no big deal. You know, you're not slowing down and stopping. I think it's I think it's good to always sort of keep that initial infatuation and that initial like, Spark still in there. So so you're just as consider it, even if you're not slowing down as much. Yeah,
I agree. You know who else is considerate? And not at all silly? Who the people who have left really lovely reviews for our podcast? Ah, I have to to share with you. These are brilliant people and we respect their brains. Yeah, we do. procrastinate with reading. Hello. Yes, this is a thing I do. They wrote. This is my new favorite podcast for when I'm getting ready for bed. Positive kind, shorter episodes. Fun hosts. It's a great thing to have in your head at the end of the day.
Thank you. Oh, that's so nice.
I'm honored to help you go to sleep at night. I mean, believe me. I am the bedtime commander. I take bedtime very seriously. So it is an honor to be in your ears while you fall asleep. And not in a creepy way not in a creepy way now in a very generous sort of, you know, calming sleep cast kind of way. Yeah, I like that. And I have another one to share with you. Object 2468 wrote amid an often grim and anxiety inducing news cycle this podcast has become a daily affirmation as the butter voiced hosts gently reassure listeners that love exists and is a force for good in this messed up world
bad so sweet. And I must say the first time you showed me this I thought it said butter faced and I was very confused. No butter voiced is excellent. Excellent. We
are your loving ASMR hosts.
Please I love that and and if you have any reviews that you would like to leave for us, we would very much appreciate it. It's the easiest way to support our show and spread the word. Also, you can send us an email directly to us at lovestruck daily at Frolik dot media. If you have a love story to share if you want to give us your reviews real time. Please follow us on Instagram or Twitter at lovestruck daily for extra content. Absolutely.
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you a very happy ever after. And maybe some good distractions a lot The way I'm in love with
