Brain Facts:
Relationships

Libido
—Decline

Despite the myth that libido declines with age, several scientific studies have found that our desire and need for sex continues throughout our lives. A healthy sex life at every age helps lower blood pressure, reduce stress, ward off depression, boost the immune system, diminish pain, maintain physical fitness, and even extend life expectancy.

Love
—Three Distinct Types

The three distinct types of love are crystal clear at the biochemical level. Appropriately, sex hormones—androgens and estrogens—largely fuel lust. Attraction, the sine qua non of romantic attachment, seems driven by a mix of high levels of dopamine and norepinephrine (which increase pleasure and relaxation) and low levels of serotonin (which adds a pleasing mood). The chemistry that makes a relationship last fuels kindness and drives caregiving, which waxes and wanes with varying levels or oxytocin and vasopressin.

Marriage
—Live Longer

According to information for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, marriage may increase life expectancy by as much as five years. Numerous studies have found that married people live longer, happily married people live the longest, and married couples who continue to be sexually active (with each other, of course) are most satisfied with their lives overall.

Mentoring Improves Physical Strength and Stamina

Scientists recently found that helping other people actually improves the helper’s mental and physical health. Study volunteers who mentor young children experienced greater physical strength and stamina, better social interaction, and more mental stimulation than a control group that was not mentoring.

Mirror Neurons

The brain’s default activity—what happens automatically when nothing much else goes on—seems to be mulling over our relationships.