Love is a painkiller
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in” — Mitch Albom, novelist and newspaper columnist for the Detroit Free Press, in Tuesdays with Morrie.
One reason love is important is that it may help alleviate pain. According to a study at the Stanford University School of Medicine published online in 2010 at PLoS ONE, love may alleviate pain in the same way narcotic painkillers do.
Pictures of participants’ own romantic partners were displayed to them to reliably evoke self-reported feelings of love. Several earlier animal studies have shown reward-processing regions of the brain to be involved in pain relief. In this study, viewing pictures of a romantic partner activated reward regions of the brain during periods of pain. Activity decreases were observed in pain-processing regions of the brain.
