00:00:00आज मैं आपसे अपने पसंदीदा विषयों में से एक के बारे में बात करने जा रहा हूँ, और वह है रूमानी प्रेम।
00:00:05मैं यह तर्क देने जा रहा हूँ कि रूमानी प्रेम उन बेहतरीन तरीकों में से एक है जिनसे इंसान अपने
00:00:10जीवन का अर्थ ढूंढते हैं। रूमानी प्रेम मेरे अपने जीवन की
00:00:16एक प्रमुख विशेषता रही है। आप जानते ही हैं, जब सच्चे प्यार और खुशी की बात आती है, तो मैं खुद भी उन बातों पर अमल करने की कोशिश करता हूँ जो दूसरों को सिखाता हूँ। और इस
00:00:21मामले में, मेरे लिए सब कुछ वाकई बहुत अच्छा रहा है। मैं खुद को बहुत भाग्यशाली महसूस करता हूँ। हमने अभी-अभी अपनी शादी की 34वीं
00:00:26वर्षगांठ मनाई है। हमारे तीन वयस्क बच्चे हैं। हमारे चार पोते-पोतियां हैं। और उन दशकों के दौरान हमारे संवाद में थोड़ा-बहुत
00:00:32सुधार हुआ है। अब, मैं आपको यह सब क्यों बता रहा हूँ? इसलिए नहीं कि यह
00:00:36बहुत असाधारण है, कम से कम मेरी उम्र के लोगों के लिए तो नहीं। उन सबकी अपनी ऐसी ही कोई अजीब कहानी होती है। लेकिन बात यह है।
00:00:42पता चला है कि इस तरह की कहानी आज के दौर में कम और कम सामान्य होती जा रही है। हम देख रहे हैं कि
00:00:48साहसिक रूमानी कारनामों की ऐसी कहानियाँ अब कम ही सुनने को मिलती हैं। और ऐसा क्यों हो रहा है?
00:00:55खैर, आज मैं इसी बारे में बात करना चाहता हूँ।
00:00:57नमस्ते दोस्तों। 'ऑफिस आवर्स' में आपका स्वागत है। मैं आर्थर ब्रूक्स हूँ। यह शो प्यार, अर्थ,
00:01:10और खुशी के बारे में है, और कैसे आप विज्ञान के बड़े विचारों का उपयोग करके इन्हें और अधिक पा सकते हैं,
00:01:14और कैसे आप इन विचारों को अन्य लोगों तक भी पहुँचा सकते हैं। मैं एक व्यवहार वैज्ञानिक हूँ जो विज्ञान और विचारों के माध्यम से
00:01:19लोगों का उत्थान करने और उन्हें साथ लाने के लिए समर्पित हूँ। और मैं चाहता हूँ कि आपके पास भी वे
00:01:24विचार हों, क्योंकि मैं केवल खुशी का शिक्षक नहीं हूँ। मैं खुशी के शिक्षकों के एक आंदोलन
00:01:30का नेतृत्व करने की कोशिश कर रहा हूँ। और मुझे इस आंदोलन में आपकी जरूरत है। इसी तरह हम एक बेहतर
00:01:34दुनिया बना सकते हैं। आज, मैं आपसे अपने पसंदीदा विषयों में से एक के बारे में बात करने जा रहा हूँ, जो रूमानी प्रेम है।
00:01:40मैं रूमानी प्रेम के विज्ञान के बारे में विस्तार से चर्चा करूँगा और बताऊंगा कि यह आपके
00:01:45जीवन का अर्थ खोजने के लिए कितना महत्वपूर्ण है। अब, हमेशा की तरह, यदि आपके पास मेरे लिए आलोचनाएं, विचार या प्रश्न हैं,
00:01:51तो कृपया अपनी प्रतिक्रिया दें। ईमेल पता है officehours@arthurbrooks.com, या आप जहाँ भी
00:01:56इस पॉडकास्ट को देख या सुन रहे हैं, वहाँ कमेंट सेक्शन में लिखें। हमेशा की तरह, कृपया लाइक करें, सब्सक्राइब करें,
00:02:02रिव्यू छोड़ें, और हम सभी के संपर्क में रहें, क्योंकि हमारे लिए सबसे महत्वपूर्ण बात यही है,
00:02:07एक बार फिर, इस कम्युनिटी का निर्माण करना। और उसके लिए आपसे सुनना जरूरी है।
00:02:11खैर, आज के मुख्य विषय पर वापस आते हैं, जो है प्यार, विशेष रूप से रूमानी प्रेम। मैं यह
00:02:18तर्क देने जा रहा हूँ कि रूमानी प्रेम उन बेहतरीन तरीकों में से एक है जिनसे इंसान अपने जीवन का अर्थ
00:02:23पाते हैं। यह एकमात्र तरीका नहीं है। अलग-अलग एपिसोड में, मैं आपके जीवन का अर्थ खोजने के अन्य तरीकों के बारे में बात करूँगा।
00:02:27लेकिन हमेशा की तरह, मैं यहाँ अपनी उस नई किताब के एक अंश के बारे में बात कर रहा हूँ
00:02:34जो 31 मार्च, 2026 को आने वाली है, जिसका शीर्षक है 'द मीनिंग ऑफ योर लाइफ: फाइंडिंग पर्पस इन एन एज ऑफ एम्पटीनेस'।
00:02:41विशेष रूप से, मैं इस किताब के रूमानी प्रेम वाले एक पूरे हिस्से के बारे में बात करूँगा और बताऊंगा कि कैसे यह
00:02:44जीवन का अर्थ खोजने की दिशा में पहली सीढ़ी है। लेकिन
00:02:51ज़ाहिर है, यह बहुत से लोगों के लिए कठिन है क्योंकि रूमानी प्रेम इतना रहस्यमय है। ऐसा लगता है जैसे इसे
00:02:57सुलझाना नामुमकिन है। असल में, यह एक ऐसी समस्या है जिसे सुलझाया नहीं जा सकता। यह एक ऐसी चीज़ है
00:03:03जिसके साथ आपको बस जीना है, जिसे आपको सहज रूप से समझना है। और मैं आपसे बात करने जा रहा हूँ
00:03:08कि बिल्कुल ऐसा कैसे किया जाए। मैं उस चीज़ के बारे में बात करने के लिए विज्ञान और विचारों का उपयोग करूँगा
00:03:12जो विज्ञान और विचारों से परे है। यही मुख्य बात है। और जब आप वास्तव में इस
00:03:17विशेष तरीके से जीते हैं, जिसमें ब्रेकअप, दिल टूटना और दुख जैसे अप्रिय हिस्से भी शामिल हैं,
00:03:21तो आपको अपने जीवन में अधिक अर्थ मिलेगा। आज आपसे मेरा यही वादा है। रूमानी प्रेम, यही
00:03:29हमारा विषय है। अब, रूमानी प्रेम मेरे अपने जीवन की एक प्रमुख विशेषता रही है।
00:03:37आप जानते हैं, जब प्यार और खुशी की बात आती है तो मैं खुद भी उन बातों पर अमल करने की कोशिश करता हूँ जो दूसरों को सिखाता हूँ। और इस संबंध में,
00:03:42मेरे लिए यह वाकई बहुत सफल रहा है। मैं बहुत भाग्यशाली महसूस करता हूँ। जब मैं 24 साल का था, तब...
00:03:48जैसा कि आप में से जो लोग मेरे अतीत के बारे में थोड़ा जानते हैं, मैं उन दिनों एक पेशेवर शास्त्रीय संगीतकार
00:03:52हुआ करता था, अपने पूरे 20 के दशक के दौरान। आप कह सकते हैं कि यह मेरा 'गैप डिकेड' था। और मैं
00:03:57एक समय 1988 की गर्मियों में यात्रा पर संगीत बजा रहा था। मैं अपने क्विनटेट के साथ फ्रांस के बरगंडी क्षेत्र में
00:04:03एक चैंबर म्यूजिक कॉन्सर्ट टूर कर रहा था, शास्त्रीय संगीत बजा रहा था,
00:04:08अलग-अलग वाइनरी और स्कूलों वगैरह में कॉन्सर्ट कर रहा था, बस एक चैंबर म्यूजिक टूर था।
00:04:13और मेरे द्वारा बजाए गए एक कॉन्सर्ट के बाद, मैं एक लड़की से मिला। मैं 24 या 25 साल का था।
00:04:20मैं उससे बात करने के लिए गया क्योंकि कॉन्सर्ट के दौरान जब मैं संगीत बजा रहा था, तो वह मुझे देखकर
00:04:24मुस्कुराई थी। और ऐसा अक्सर नहीं होता था। इसलिए मैंने अपना परिचय देने के लिए सीधे उसकी ओर रुख किया।
00:04:29पता चला कि उसे अंग्रेजी का एक शब्द भी नहीं आता था, जो कि एक समस्या थी क्योंकि मुझे
00:04:33अंग्रेजी के अलावा कुछ नहीं आता था। वह फ्रेंच, स्पेनिश, इतालवी और कैटलन
00:04:37जैसी भाषाएँ बोलती थी। और मुझे एक दुभाषिए के माध्यम से, एक दोस्त जो द्विभाषी था, पता चला
00:04:41कि वह वास्तव में फ्रेंच नहीं थी। वह खुद संगीत की छात्रा के रूप में फ्रांस में पढ़ रही थी, और वह
00:04:47बार्सिलोना, स्पेन से थी। और इसलिए मैंने वही एकमात्र स्पष्ट काम किया, जो शायद आपको लगे कि ऐसा कहना था, “ओह,
00:04:54बुरा हुआ। शायद किसी और जन्म में मैं तुमसे बात कर पाऊंगा।” मैंने वही किया
00:05:00जो मुझे करना चाहिए था, यानी मैंने एक दुभाषिए के माध्यम से उसे रात के खाने पर बुलाया। और हम
00:05:03डिनर पर गए और हमारी कुछ मुलाकातें हुईं। और फिर मैं अपने टूर से घर वापस आ गया, लेकिन मैं उसे
00:05:07अपने दिमाग से नहीं निकाल सका। इसलिए मैंने अपने पिता को फोन किया और कहा, “पिताजी, मुझे लगता है कि मैं उस लड़की से मिल गया हूँ जिससे मैं
00:05:13शादी करने वाला हूँ।” उन्होंने कहा, “बहुत अच्छे, बहुत अच्छे। क्या मैं उससे मिल सकता हूँ?” मैंने कहा, “खैर, मामला थोड़ा पेचीदा है।
00:05:20वह अंग्रेजी का एक शब्द भी नहीं जानती। वह संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका में नहीं रहती। और उसे ज़रा भी अंदाज़ा नहीं है
00:05:25कि मैं ऐसा महसूस करता हूँ।” जिसने वास्तव में रास्ते में कुछ बाधाएं खड़ी कर दीं, लेकिन एक जुनूनी
00:05:2824 वर्षीय अमेरिकी के लिए कोई बाधा मायने नहीं रखती। इसलिए मैंने जितना हो सके संपर्क बनाए रखा और उसे थोड़ा बेहतर जानने की योजना बनाई।
00:05:35मैंने सिर्फ योजना नहीं बनाई, बल्कि एक रणनीति बनाई। मैंने वास्तव में
00:05:40अपनी नौकरी छोड़ दी। मैं स्पेन चला गया। इस बीच कुछ और बातें भी हुईं। इस दौरान एक साल
00:05:46बीत गया था। और वह वास्तव में मुझसे मिलने न्यूयॉर्क आई थी, और उसने
00:05:50अंग्रेजी सीखना शुरू कर दिया था। तो उसने भी थोड़ी पहल की थी। लेकिन अगली गर्मियों तक, मैंने वास्तव में
00:05:55अपनी नौकरी छोड़ दी थी और बार्सिलोना सिटी ऑर्केस्ट्रा में नौकरी ले ली थी ताकि मैं इस रिश्ते को शादी तक ले जा सकूं,
00:06:01यदि संभव हो तो। हमने एक-दूसरे के साथ संवाद करना सीखा। मुझे इस मुकाम तक पहुँचने में
00:06:06करीब दो साल लगे, लेकिन वास्तव में हमारी शादी हो गई, जैसा कि मैंने उम्मीद की थी। और आप
00:06:13सोच रहे होंगे कि कहानी का अंत क्या हुआ क्योंकि यह एक अजीब सी कहानी है, जैसे डॉन क्विक्सोट का
00:06:18हवा की चक्कियों से लड़ना। संगीत का करियर बहुत लंबा नहीं चला। मैं 31 साल की उम्र में अन्य
00:06:25चीजों की ओर बढ़ गया, लेकिन शादी बहुत सफल रही। हमने अभी-अभी अपनी शादी की 34वीं वर्षगांठ मनाई है।
00:06:30हमारे तीन वयस्क बच्चे हैं। हमारे चार पोते-पोतियां हैं। और उन बीते दशकों में हमारा संवाद थोड़ा बेहतर हुआ है।
00:06:36अब, मैं आपको यह सब क्यों बता रहा हूँ? इसलिए नहीं कि यह इतना
00:06:41असाधारण है, कम से कम मेरी उम्र के लोगों के लिए तो नहीं। आप आज 60 या 50 साल के लोगों से बात करें,
00:06:46चाहे वे लेट बूमर्स हों या जेन एक्सर्स, उन सबके पास ऐसी ही कोई अजीब कहानी होती है। लेकिन बात यह है। पता चला है
00:06:53कि उस तरह की कहानी आज के दौर में कम और कम सामान्य होती जा रही है। हम देख रहे हैं कि साहसिक रूमानी कारनामों की
00:06:59ऐसी कहानियाँ अब कम ही सुनने को मिलती हैं। और इसके पीछे क्या वजह है? खैर, मैं इसी बारे में
00:07:06बात करना चाहता हूँ। और मैं इस बारे में बात करना चाहता हूँ कि कैसे आप अपने प्रेम जीवन में अधिक साहसी बन सकते हैं,
00:07:11भले ही आप आज 24 साल के हों, जैसा मैं तब था। कैसे आप अपने जीवन को एक उद्यम के रूप में सोच सकते हैं।
00:07:18और उस उद्यम की मुद्रा प्यार और खुशी है। रूमानी प्रेम सबसे उच्च श्रेणी का ईंधन है,
00:07:23आपकी इस जीवन यात्रा के लिए, और कैसे आप रणनीतिक जोखिम उठाकर अपने जीवन को संवार सकते हैं,
00:07:29भले ही दुनिया ने आपको ऐसा न करने के लिए कहा हो। कैसे तकनीक ने आपको हतोत्साहित किया है,
00:07:34लेकिन हकीकत में, आप अपने जीवन को वापस कैसे पा सकते हैं, उस रोमांस से शुरुआत करके जो आप शायद चाहते हैं।
00:07:40तो हम कहानी कहाँ से शुरू करें? हम कहानी शुरू करते हैं, कुछ आंकड़ों के साथ।
00:07:47और मैंने अभी जो दावा किया था कि मेरी उम्र के लोगों के पास ऐसी कहानियाँ अधिक होती थीं जब वे अपने 20 के दशक में थे,
00:07:52या बिना बात के शिकायत करना। नहीं, वास्तव में डेटा में यह
00:07:56in their 20s today. And that's not just an assertion. That's just not just an old guy saying, "Kids these
00:08:01काफी स्पष्ट है। उदाहरण के लिए, चलिए मेरे समय से थोड़ा पहले चलते हैं, लगभग 1950 में, सटीक रूप से 1949 में, अमेरिका में 79%
00:08:06घरों में विवाहित जोड़े रहते थे। आज यह 47% है। 79% से 47%। कुछ बहुत बड़ा हुआ है।
00:08:13आप पाएंगे कि पूरी तरह से गिरावट तो नहीं आई है, लेकिन लोगों के शादी करने की दर में
00:08:20काफी कमी आई है। तो आप सोच सकते हैं, “हाँ, बिल्कुल। धन्यवाद प्रोफेसर, लेकिन लोग बिना शादी किए भी साथ रह रहे हैं।”
00:08:26यह सच है, लेकिन यह पूरी तरह सच नहीं है। आप पाएंगे कि बिना शादी के साथ रहना (कोहैबिटेशन) भी कम हुआ है,
00:08:30खासकर पिछले कुछ दशकों में। 1990 के बाद से, जब मैं मिसेज बी से मिला था,
00:08:35खासकर मैं उनसे 1988 में मिला और 1991 में शादी की, तब से पुरुषों में बिना पार्टनर वाले लोगों का प्रतिशत
00:08:42एक तिहाई और महिलाओं में एक चौथाई बढ़ गया है। मूल रूप से इसे इस तरह सोचें। शादी
00:08:50कम हो रही है। साथ रहना कम हो रहा है। यहाँ तक कि लोग यौन संबंध भी कम बना रहे हैं, हम यहाँ सिर्फ कैजुअल हुकअप की बात नहीं कर रहे हैं।
00:08:581988 में, 20 के दशक के लगभग 50% लोगों का किसी न किसी समय एक नियमित यौन साथी होता था।
00:09:04आज यह लगभग 33% है। तो इसमें भी गिरावट आ रही है। ठीक है, तो मैं आपको ये सभी आंकड़े दे रहा हूँ। इससे क्या फर्क पड़ता है?
00:09:09खैर, मुझे पड़ता है क्योंकि मैं प्यार और खुशी के बारे में सोचता हूँ। खुशी, हाँ, बिल्कुल। यह सब, कम शादी,
00:09:16कम साथ रहना, कम रूमानी जीवन, कम रूमानी प्रेम खुशी के लिए बहुत बुरा है।
00:09:22और यह उसका एक बड़ा हिस्सा है, एक लक्षण है, और यह उस चीज़ को बढ़ावा देता है जिसे हम
00:09:28इस शो में नाखुशी की मनोवैज्ञानिक महामारी (साइकोजेनिक एपिडेमिक) कहते हैं। अब, एक साइकोजेनिक एपिडेमिक एक ऐसी महामारी है,
00:09:37जिसका अर्थ है कि यह अत्यधिक संक्रामक है। यह बहुत दुख पैदा कर रही है, लेकिन इसका कोई जैविक मूल कारण
00:09:45होना ज़रूरी नहीं है। अब, हर चीज़ का कुछ न कुछ जैविक आधार तो होता ही है क्योंकि जैसा कि आप सभी जानते हैं, मनोविज्ञान ही
00:09:51जीवविज्ञान है। लेकिन जो भी हो, यह वास्तव में अजीब है। ऐसा नहीं है कि आबादी में कोई वायरस या
00:09:56बैक्टीरिया आ गया है, जिसने लोगों को प्यार में न पड़ने, एक-दूसरे के प्रति आकर्षित न होने,
00:10:01एक-दूसरे के साथ बाहर न जाने के लिए मजबूर कर दिया है। हमारी खुशी में कुछ मनोवैज्ञानिक चल रहा है
00:10:06जो लोगों की उस अनिच्छा या असमर्थता से जुड़ा है कि वे वास्तव में वह रूमानी प्रेम नहीं पा पा रहे हैं जिसे
00:10:13पाने की इच्छा बहुत से लोग स्वीकार करते हैं, लेकिन जो अब उतना मौजूद नहीं है। अब, यदि आपके अपने
00:10:20जीवन में कोई रूमानी प्रेम संबंध है, तो यह बहुत अच्छी बात है। मैं आपके लिए बहुत खुश
00:10:25हूँ, लेकिन आप शायद किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति को जानते होंगे जिसके पास ऐसा संबंध नहीं है। और यदि आप नहीं जानते, तो शायद आप या कोई और
00:10:33ऐसा संबंध चाहता होगा। तो चलिए इसके रहस्य को थोड़ा समझते हैं। चलिए इस मनोवैज्ञानिक महामारी के बारे में थोड़ी और बात करते हैं
00:10:38क्योंकि जैसा कि हम हमेशा करते हैं, अपनी समस्या को समझने के लिए विज्ञान का उपयोग करते हैं। और फिर
00:10:44वास्तव में कुछ समाधानों पर पहुँचते हैं। आज मैं आपको अपने जीवन में वास्तविक रूमानी प्रेम के अनुभव को
00:10:49समझने के लिए एक प्रोटोकॉल देना चाहता हूँ। आप इसे कैसे पाते हैं?
00:10:54आप इसे कैसे बनाए रखते हैं? आप प्यार में पड़ते हैं। आप प्यार में कैसे बने रहते हैं? चलिए थोड़ी शुरुआत
00:11:00इस विवरण के साथ करते हैं कि जब आप प्यार में पड़ रहे होते हैं तो आपके साथ क्या होता है। और फिर इससे हमें
00:11:06यह बात करने का अवसर मिलेगा कि यह कभी-कभी सही तरीके से काम क्यों नहीं करता, यह आपके जीवन में सही तरीके से क्यों नहीं चला होगा,
00:11:12आपने ऐसा अनुभव क्यों किया होगा जहाँ आप प्यार में पड़ रहे थे और दूसरा व्यक्ति नहीं था या इसके विपरीत।
00:11:17यह उस चीज़ के रहस्य को समझने का एक अच्छा तरीका है, जो हमें
00:11:22अब तक का सबसे रहस्यमय अनुभव लगता है। और हकीकत में, यह कुछ हद तक है भी।
00:11:26जब हम प्यार में पड़ते हैं, तो मानव मस्तिष्क में चार चरणों की एक प्रक्रिया चल रही होती है।
00:11:33प्रक्रिया का पहला चरण सिर्फ बुनियादी आकर्षण है। और आकर्षण को मुख्य रूप से
00:11:37यौन हार्मोन, टेस्टोस्टेरोन और एस्ट्रोजन के संदर्भ में समझा जाता है।
00:11:43वैसे, पुरुषों और महिलाओं दोनों में टेस्टोस्टेरोन होता है। पुरुषों और महिलाओं दोनों में एस्ट्रोजन होता है। आप शायद
00:11:48यह पहले से ही जानते होंगे। बस इतना है कि पुरुषों में महिलाओं की तुलना में अधिक टेस्टोस्टेरोन होता है और महिलाओं में
00:11:53पुरुषों की तुलना में अधिक एस्ट्रोजन होता है। और जब कोई बुनियादी आकर्षण होता है तो यौन हार्मोन में अचानक वृद्धि होती है।
00:11:59यह कोई अजीब बात नहीं है। यह जहरीला नहीं है। इसमें कुछ भी गलत नहीं है। यह अब तक की
00:12:02सबसे सामान्य बात है। हम इसी तरह विकसित हुए हैं। यह एक जैविक प्रक्रिया है। इसी तरह
00:12:07होमो सेपियंस वास्तव में एक-दूसरे को संभावित साथियों के रूप में पहचानते हैं। यह बिल्कुल
00:12:12शुरुआत में होता है। वास्तव में, यह किसी को कमरे के दूसरी ओर से देखने जितना जल्दी भी हो सकता है।
00:12:16लेकिन निश्चित रूप से, यह तब और अधिक तीव्र होता है जब हम किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति के साथ बातचीत कर रहे होते हैं जो
00:12:22आकर्षक है, यही कारण है कि लोग डेट पर जाना चाहते हैं। वे एक-दूसरे को जानना चाहते हैं।
00:12:27वे देखना चाहते हैं कि क्या आकर्षण वास्तविक है, जिसका अर्थ है कि वे देखना चाहते हैं कि क्या
00:12:31उनका न्यूरोकेमिकल अनुभव, मुख्य रूप से यौन हार्मोन टेस्टोस्टेरोन और एस्ट्रोजन के साथ, सही है या नहीं।
00:12:34अब, इसके तुरंत बाद एक दूसरा न्यूरोकेमिकल चरण आता है,
00:12:38जिसमें न्यूरोट्रांसमीटर शामिल होते हैं, विशेष रूप से नॉरपेनेफ्रिन और डोपामाइन।
00:12:42अब, आप सभी डोपामाइन के बारे में जानते हैं। मैंने इस शो में लत, लालसा, इच्छा, सीखने, चाहने और
00:12:49विशेष व्यवहारों में वृद्धि और उस सब के बारे में बहुत विस्तार से बात की है। लेकिन डोपामाइन बस
00:12:55इतने सारे प्रकार के व्यवहारों में शामिल होता है। और वास्तव में, प्यार में पड़ने की प्रक्रिया में इसकी बहुत बड़ी
00:13:00भूमिका होती है, जैसे कि नॉरपेनेफ्रिन की, जो कि गुर्दे के ठीक ऊपर स्थित एड्रेनल ग्रंथियों में
00:13:05पैदा होने वाला एक तनाव हार्मोन है। आप कहेंगे, “वाह, एक तनाव हार्मोन।” हाँ।
00:13:11खैर, यदि आप पहले कभी प्यार में पड़े हैं, तो आप जानते हैं कि यह अविश्वसनीय रूप से तनावपूर्ण है, लेकिन यह अविश्वसनीय रूप से
00:13:17आनंददायक भी है। यह वास्तव में हमारे साथ क्या कर रहा है? यह हमें प्रत्याशा (anticipation) और
00:13:22उत्साह (euphoria) का एहसास दे रहा है। उदाहरण के लिए, आप किसी के साथ प्यार में पड़ रहे हैं या आपने
00:13:25अभी किसी के साथ एक या दो बहुत ही सफल डेट्स की हैं, और आप कह रहे हैं, “पता नहीं वह व्यक्ति
00:13:32मुझे टेक्स्ट करेगा या नहीं।” खैर, टेक्स्ट आने का इंतज़ार करना सुखद भी है और साथ ही भयानक भी।
00:13:36यही डोपामाइन है। यह आपके मस्तिष्क में डोपामाइन है जो कह रहा है, “प्रत्याशा और इनाम।
00:13:40going to text me." Well, the anticipation of the text is delicious and terrible at the same time.
00:13:48That's dopamine. That's dopamine that's actually in your brain saying, "Anticipation and reward.
00:13:52It's going to be great. If it happens, sure hope it happens." And then ding, and it's actually the
00:13:58person. And that's that little splash of euphoria as you actually hear from that person. That's
00:14:03norepinephrine. Now, all the things that I'm talking about here, this neurochemical cascade
00:14:07of falling in love... By the way, all of this, almost everything in neuroscience is not settled
00:14:12science. So it's not as if everything has been seen in the lab and there's no neuroscientist who
00:14:17disagrees with this. On the contrary, if you're a neuroscientist and you think this is too glib or
00:14:22something, let me know because I want to learn and we're all learning, we're actually getting better
00:14:26at this. But this is as close as I can get actually based on the refereed academic literature on this
00:14:32to try to turn it into language that ordinary people can understand with respect to the experience
00:14:38that they actually have. So that's step two, norepinephrine and dopamine that gives you
00:14:42anticipation of reward and a sense of euphoria. That happens relatively quickly, like within days
00:14:50of actually meeting somebody, sometimes even more quickly than that. And that's what makes you feel
00:14:55kind of addicted to the other person. And in point of fact, neuroscientists studying the brains of
00:14:59people in love versus those addicted to drugs find similar activity in the pleasure and pain regions
00:15:04of the brain. If you've been following the work all along, you know that I'm talking about the ventral
00:15:09tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the insula, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, et cetera,
00:15:14et cetera, all those parts of the brain that are involved in pleasure and pain, which you get when
00:15:18you're actually addicted to drugs or gambling or you get that when you're in love too. I mean, look
00:15:23at the activity of somebody falling in love. You'll be like, oh my goodness, this is a methamphetamine
00:15:29addict. Oh no, it's okay. It's just somebody who's in love. And that's the reason that you feel
00:15:33addicted to the other person when you're in the early stages of falling in love. Okay, that's step
00:15:37two. Step three is where it gets kind of gnarly here, I have to tell you, because that's where we
00:15:41get a big drop in serotonin. Now, serotonin is a neurotransmitter that's implicated in the process
00:15:49of people experiencing clinical depression. Major depressive disorders, generally speaking, involves
00:15:56a big, big deficit in the synapse of serotonin. That's the reason that people who seek relief from
00:16:02their depression symptoms will take selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, so-called SSRIs.
00:16:07Prozac, for example, is the most famous variant of a whole family of these drugs to keep more serotonin
00:16:14in the synapse, which is associated with lower symptoms of depression. Well, guess what happens
00:16:19when you're falling in love in this third stage? Your serotonin tanks. Now, here's the interesting
00:16:24thing about this. And once again, all this stuff is contested, but this is really... I think this
00:16:30is an unbelievably useful way to understand what's going on here. You ruminate in sadness when you're
00:16:36depressed. You ruminate on another person when you're falling in love. Well, rumination is
00:16:43rumination. Rumination comes from ruminare, which is Latin for chewing the cud. That's what rumination
00:16:50is all about. So you can't get sadness and regret out of your brain if you're clinically depressed,
00:16:55feeling so crummy about yourself. You can't get that other person out of your brain. You're
00:16:58thinking and thinking and thinking about every little thing. And did I say the right thing?
00:17:02Was that a stupid thing that I said? And that little gesture that she did, does that mean that
00:17:06she doesn't like me? Does it mean she does like me? What does that mean? Well, that's the same kind of
00:17:10activity because your brain is working the same way. What's happening with rumination? You're
00:17:14imprinting something. When you're really depressed about something, your brain is literally trying to
00:17:20learn a lesson so that you won't make a mistake a second time. It can be really out of proportion.
00:17:25It can be really exaggerated, which is the reason that relief is so important and drugs for some
00:17:31people can provide some relief. But when you're falling in love, you want that other person to
00:17:35imprint on you because you're in the process of becoming pair bond mated with that person.
00:17:39I mean, you're potentially, this is it for life, man. So you better imprint in the right way,
00:17:44but it leads to all this kind of weird kind of ruminative, obsessive activity. Like, why did I
00:17:51just leave 10 voicemails in the last hour? Maybe I'm dating myself, you know, who leaves 10 voicemails
00:17:57now? Why did I send 100 text messages in the last hour? I'm so stupid, stupid, stupid. That's classic.
00:18:03That's classic for ruminating, low serotonin. So really, I mean, technically you should be able
00:18:10to look at somebody's brain and say, wow, really low serotonin activity, either they're clinically
00:18:15depressed or they're in the third stage of falling in love. Okay. That's one of the reasons that
00:18:20falling in love is a thrill and wonderful, but at the same time, really terrible. And you wouldn't
00:18:25want to stay in that stage for the rest of your life. You know, people would say, I just wish I could
00:18:29be in love like the early days with my spouse for the rest of my life. Are you kidding me?
00:18:34You'd need to be medicated if that were the case. So you could function at all, most likely,
00:18:39especially because of this third step. And last but not least, this is where we're trying to get
00:18:44in the weeks and months after falling in love. This last step involves oxytocin and to a lesser
00:18:51extent, vasopressin. These are neuropeptides in the brain that function as hormones in the brain
00:18:56that bond us together. Now, women have about three times as much oxytocin as men. And part of the
00:19:02reason for that is that women bear children and they need to bond to a brand new baby who doesn't
00:19:07have the slightest idea who even they are to the baby. And men also bond to the baby too, especially
00:19:13with eye contact and touch, which is why when your newborn baby is born, the guys, if you're going to
00:19:18be a dad and the doctor says, you want to cut the cord, say yes. And they hand you a kind of a messy
00:19:24baby, say yes, because you want to bond to the baby. That's really, really important. And it's
00:19:29a very beautiful thing. By the way, people when they have a newborn baby, it's like the 4th of July
00:19:34inside their head and they don't know what's going on. It's an unbelievable explosion of oxytocin.
00:19:38You also get a lot of oxytocin when you're in the process of falling in love with somebody,
00:19:42especially in this stage where you're bonding to the person. You're making somebody who you're
00:19:48not related to your kin. You know, I've talked in the past about the four pillars of happiness,
00:19:54the four habits of happiness that people engage in, faith, family, friendship, and work. Well,
00:20:00friendship and family. There's only one thing that falls into both categories and that's your spouse.
00:20:05That's your lifelong romantic partner. That person becomes another you in a very real way,
00:20:12but not related to you. Not supposed to be related to you. It's a taboo if they're related to you,
00:20:16but they become related to you in a way that really, really matters, which is that you're
00:20:19neurochemically linked in a pair bond that's supposed to last for life. Of course, it doesn't
00:20:25always last for life, but at least at the early stages, nobody's like, "Yeah, man. Oh, man. Oh,
00:20:30man. I want this to last for life, but I probably won't." That's not what people say, right? And the
00:20:35reason they don't say that is because they got the oxytocin pump on. Vasopressin, which is more
00:20:41prominent in males, by the way. That's less of the love link and it's more about loyalty and defense.
00:20:49So that's the reason that males have that a little bit more than females, as you'd imagine from the
00:20:54evolutionary biology. But the bottom line is men and women, they both get both and they're both
00:20:59really, really important such that the person that you're with is your mate forever. Human beings as a
00:21:05general rule, there's a lot of debate about this. Are we naturally monogamous? Are we serially
00:21:10monogamous? Are we non-monogamous? And there's no consensus on this except that if there is,
00:21:17it's that ideally almost everybody wants to be single unilaterally parabond mated. That's what
00:21:23people want. That's the ideal that people want. And so some would say that that's sort of the natural
00:21:27habitat for us. Doesn't always work out that way, of course, but that's the case. And that's certainly
00:21:32how you feel when you're falling in love. "This is it, man. This is going to be it for life." Or at
00:21:36least I sure hope it's going to be it for life. Now, the goal at this point is not the passionate
00:21:43love of steps one, two, and three. The goal is to get there together at the same time to the
00:21:50oxytocin level, the vasopressin level for deep connection and deep friendship. And this really
00:21:55is the goal of a successful pair bond mate. I mean, there's plenty of passion in 30, 40, 50 years,
00:22:06but it's deep friendship. That's the secret to a pair bond mate that lasts forever is deep
00:22:14friendship. That's what it's all about. And that has to do with this neurochemical bond where this
00:22:19person is your kin and is going to be your kin for the rest of your days. And when it doesn't happen,
00:22:25by the way, when you get the early stages, but not those late stages of kinship, that's when you get
00:22:31this deep, deep, deep disappointment. And that's one of the reasons that people can be just like
00:22:34madly in love. And then it doesn't work out. And a year later, they hate each other. What's up with
00:22:40that? And the answer is they didn't get to the friendship stage. The friendship stage has a
00:22:46particular coinage in the world of social science called companionate love. So there's passionate
00:22:52love, which are the early stages, there's companionate love, which is where you want to get.
00:22:56Again, plenty of passion in companionate love, but you want your companion. You want the person
00:23:00that you're walking into the sunset with, holding hands, the person you're going to be looking at as
00:23:05your closest friend, the person who is the other you as you take your dying breath. That's what really
00:23:09we're talking about with companionate love. I know it doesn't sound that thrilling. As my kids said,
00:23:14companionate love, dad, that's not hot. I mean, I get it. But that's just the term. And that's what
00:23:20we're talking about. When people actually don't get there, the disappointment from that can actually
00:23:23lead to real bitterness toward each other, as a matter of fact. Almost always the process is
00:23:29truncated, which is why there's so much bitterness in relationships that they don't work out. Now,
00:23:34why don't they work out? Frequently, it's because this neurochemical cascade that proceeds through
00:23:39very distinctive stages, people do it out of sync. They're not going through it at the same speed.
00:23:46So you can see how that's a problem, or that somebody doesn't go through the whole thing.
00:23:50And there's a real pathology with a lot of men. And again, this is a hypothesis. You can't really test
00:23:55this directly. But it's a pretty sound hypothesis nonetheless, that some guys, they can't get through
00:24:01all four stages. They can only go from sex hormones for attraction to thrill, right? One, two, stop.
00:24:09One, two, one, two. You've met guys like this, probably. Some women, but it's really quite common
00:24:15with guys. And these are a lot of guys who tend to be dark triads, by the way. And you know what
00:24:19that is. If you've watched the show for any length of time, I'll put a link here to the episode on how
00:24:25to spot a dark triad. And they tend to go... They're really attracted and they get a thrill, but they
00:24:30stop there because they don't fall in love. And so it's one, two, one, two, one, two. It's all about
00:24:35seduction. These are the worst guys that women typically get involved in, as a matter of fact.
00:24:41They just can't get through the whole neurochemical cascade all the way to a loving, committed
00:24:47relationship, which by its nature is companion at love with tons of oxytocin is how that works.
00:24:54So that's the way to understand how all this works. But it's also, it shows that when, for example,
00:24:59somebody tends to go through this really, really fast, they can scare other people off. And there is
00:25:04a phenomenon called hemophilia. I don't mean hemophilia. It's a blood disorder without the H.
00:25:10Hemophilia is a syndrome in which people fall in love almost instantaneously. And it tends to be
00:25:16more common in women than it is for men. And so women who fall in love really, really, really
00:25:21quickly, they often have problems because they're going like lickety split through this neurochemical
00:25:26cascade and guys can't keep up and the guys get scared off. So I would say that one problem is
00:25:33guys who don't get through the whole cascade and women who go too quickly through the cascade. But
00:25:37these are common problems that we see. And especially in the second case, if you're
00:25:41hemophilic, if you go too quickly, knowledge is power. This is not some sort of deterministic
00:25:47path where you're going to be stuck on this for the rest of your life. On the contrary,
00:25:50once you know this, the knowledge can actually help you slow this down and metacognitively,
00:25:56in other words, using your executive centers, decide on how you're going to behave,
00:26:00saying, "Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm doing that thing. I'm doing that thing. I'm feeling that thing,
00:26:05but I'm not going to do that thing, notwithstanding my feelings." And once again, how do you manage
00:26:09your feelings so they don't manage you? Go back to the episode on managing your emotions. And that's
00:26:14what you'll be able to use if you tend to be quite an hemophilic person. Hemophilic people are so
00:26:19emotive, they're so empathetic, they're so lovely, but they suffer. They suffer. And if that's you,
00:26:25then figure out ways to manage yourself. Go back to that episode and you'll see ways to actually
00:26:30do that. Okay, so there's lots of unbelievably useful information in this little primer on the
00:26:36neurobiology of falling in love, to be sure. But it's not just about neurobiology. Most religious
00:26:42traditions believe that there's a kind of a mystical sense in romantic love. I mean, in
00:26:48Hinduism, in the Bhagavad Purana, the authors elegize earthly love in the deity of Lord Krishna
00:26:58as a symbol of divine love. In other words, there's something divine about earthly love.
00:27:02It's a simulacrum. It's a model in the Hindu religion. It's a beautiful thing.
00:27:06In the Jewish and Christian Bible, "This is now the bone of my bones, the flesh of my flesh," said
00:27:12Adam about Eve. And you often think that it's like we become one flesh as kind of a reference to sex,
00:27:19but you know, it's one brain, man. And again, all the work that I've done talking about the
00:27:25hemispheric lateralization, the right hemisphere of the brain, this is really where communication
00:27:31happens between two people who are falling in love. And you know, after 34 years, I'm in love
00:27:35with my wife. I just am. And how do we communicate? We communicate beyond the level of just words. I
00:27:43mean, our language centers are in the left side of our brain, the Broca's area, and the Wernicke's
00:27:47area, and the left cortex. No, we're one pulsing right hemisphere, especially when things are
00:27:54working well. But even when they're not, even when we're fighting a lot, it's like, "Why are you so
00:27:59mad at me?" "I don't know." That's classic case of one flesh right there. Celebrate it. I mean, it's
00:28:06probably sometimes, but the whole point is that's the way it's supposed to work. That's the divine
00:28:11sense of what it is. Now, you might say like Brooks is such a romantic. "No, no, no, I'm a scientist.
00:28:16I'm both." Because when it comes to love, iron sharpens iron. The romance and the science,
00:28:23boy, did they ever meet up. This is also one of the reasons, by the way, when we get into the
00:28:26divinity of this thing, that people who regularly practice their religions, they have so much more
00:28:33success, generally speaking, in their relationships than those who don't. Now, again, I'm not saying
00:28:38that if you're not religious, you can't have success. I'm just saying that the odds go up
00:28:41if you do. Way lower divorce rates, way lower disillusion rates, and much, much higher levels
00:28:46of marital satisfaction. And Brad Wilcox, the University of Virginia, the Institute for Family
00:28:50Studies also shows that married couples, happily married couples who are religious, they tend to
00:28:56have a lot more sex than married couples who are not religious, which probably for secular couples
00:29:02sounds pretty surprising or it might, I don't know. Why is this? Because romantic love for really
00:29:09devout people in almost every religion, it's a manifestation of the divine. It's almost as if
00:29:16your marriage, your relationship, is an antenna to God. It's the craziest thing. And some of you
00:29:22watching will know what I'm talking about and some will be really baffled by this. But long married
00:29:27couples that have a strong religious faith, my faith or sort of any faith, they feel it's kind
00:29:32of like those old nuclear submarines where you'd have to have the first and second officers have
00:29:39a key to launch nuclear missiles. You have two keys in different parts of the sub, turn them both on,
00:29:45and then you can launch the missile. That's kind of how it feels like to have a connection to God,
00:29:50you need to have both keys turning is how that feels. And there's this really strong sense for
00:29:54a lot of religious couples that when I deny my spouse love, I'm denying her God's love.
00:30:00And again, if you're not religious, you're going, "That's crazy." But those of you who are
00:30:06religious, you'll know what I'm talking about. Einstein himself, by the way, who was not a
00:30:10traditional religious believer, but he was actually quite spiritual, the master theoretician of the
00:30:15universe's ultimate forces, he believed that it was love, romantic love, not science. That was how we
00:30:22would understand the meaning of the world and our place in it. The guy who invented the theory of
00:30:26relativity didn't say that these equations are going to help us understand the world and our place in
00:30:32it. It's romantic love, which was beyond his ability to articulate meaningfully. Okay. So what
00:30:39is it? What is love? What is love? You know, I should have defined it from the very beginning,
00:30:43but it gets back to good old Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and Averroes and Maimonides and a lot of
00:30:50people in between would have defined love as to will the good of the other. Okay. So this might sound
00:30:57like I'm kind of getting off base here because I'm talking about a lot of sentiments, a lot of
00:31:01emotions, a lot of brain activity, and now I'm talking about the will, right? That the love is
00:31:06the will to go to the other as other. But that is actually the definition of what it means to be
00:31:12pair bonded with somebody. You know, if love, even romantic love, were just about a feeling,
00:31:18well, a feeling is evidence of love. It isn't love itself. The feeling of love is evidence of love,
00:31:24just like the smell of the turkey is evidence of Thanksgiving dinner, kind of like happiness,
00:31:28kind of works the same way. Happiness is not a feeling. Feelings are evidence of happiness. Well,
00:31:32the feeling of love is evidence of love. So love is an act of will and a commitment toward another
00:31:38person's good. They're good as them, is the way that that turns out. If love were just a feeling,
00:31:44man, I wouldn't have been married 34 years. I wouldn't have been married 34 minutes because
00:31:47that's probably when he had our first big argument. I mean, my wife is Spanish. Fighting is like a
00:31:54basic form of communication for them. So, yeah. So what is it? It's the will to go to the other.
00:32:00The trouble is that we don't have good vocabulary for it, especially in English.
00:32:04I mean, the fact that we got one word for love is pathetic, I have to say in English. You can love
00:32:10your wife. You can love your husband. You can love your dog. You can love your job. You can love the
00:32:15Red Sox. You can love Chicago deep dish pizza. But if you're loving all those things in the same way,
00:32:20well, there's some problems here. We need to talk. Obviously, you don't love everything in the same
00:32:25way. And we have a diminished vocabulary for the thing that we most want, at least most of us most
00:32:32want. Now, Spanish, which is my other language at this point, because Mrs. B and I, we kind of
00:32:36grew up together. And so we now speak a melange, a 50/50 melange of Spanish and English, a Spanglish,
00:32:42you might say. Spanish is marginally better for talking about love. It has two words that really
00:32:48mean that, kerer and amar. Amar is sort of deep passionate romantic love. Kerer is... It really
00:32:54means to love another person, to be sure, but you wouldn't use them interchangeably. You wouldn't say
00:33:00te amo to your sister. You wouldn't say that. You'd say te quiero, because I love you as a person,
00:33:07if that's how you express yourself, your sister. And that wouldn't be weird. So, differences, right?
00:33:13You know who got it right was the ancient Greeks. And I wish I could speak authoritatively about,
00:33:17I don't know, Sanskrit or the Dravidian languages of Southern India, which are so unbelievably rich
00:33:24in deep, deep psychology. I bet that they have great vocabularies in it, but I can't speak to
00:33:29that with any sort of authority. But Greek is unbelievable. There's seven words for love. Eros,
00:33:35which is romantic passionate love. Philia, which is brotherly love, or friendship, deep friendship.
00:33:42Agape, which is unconditional selfless love, including for the divine. Storga, which is between
00:33:50family members. Ludus, which is playful love or flirtation, which can lead to eros. Pragma,
00:33:57which means practical love and companionship. And philautia, which is self-love. And of course,
00:34:02all those things are really, really different, and they have a different verb for it, a different word
00:34:06for it in Greek for each one of those things. And this is really interesting, because it turns out
00:34:12that that's not just intellectual stuff. On the contrary, if we had a better understanding or a
00:34:16better vocabulary for different forms of love in English, we would be able to explain, for example,
00:34:21the friend zone, the dreaded friend zone. Sounds so nice, doesn't it? It's not nice, right? That's
00:34:26where two people are together and who could conceivably be fall in love, eros, mutually,
00:34:32but they don't. One has eros and the other has philia. One has passionate romantic love for the
00:34:40other and the other has friendship love. And that's just, it's sad for the one who, you know, philia
00:34:46is great. I love, I have tons of friends. I'm really glad they have philia for me, but I wouldn't
00:34:50want my wife to have philia for me. I mean, she does at this point because we have a deep kind of
00:34:54enduring love. On the contrary, we have all seven. That's what a long relationship is all about. But
00:35:00eros is the bedrock of it because we're husband and wife. This explains the mismatches that actually
00:35:06lead to heartbreak, as a matter of fact. Okay. Now, speaking of the Greeks, the reason I wanted
00:35:11to bring up the Greeks really is that the Greeks are the ones who help us understand this link
00:35:18between romantic love and the meaning of life and the meaning of life. And here's how it works.
00:35:23In Plato's symposium, which for those of you who haven't read it, Plato's symposium
00:35:28is really what it's doing. It's kind of, it's describing the words of Socrates. Socrates was
00:35:32Plato's teacher, but Socrates never wrote anything. So everything we know about Socrates's words
00:35:37actually comes from Plato. And so we don't know. I mean, did Socrates really say it? Was he taking
00:35:43dictation? Was he kind of working from memory? Probably working from memory. But the whole point
00:35:49is that in Plato's symposium, he tells the story of Socrates. When Socrates was recounting a time
00:35:55in his own youth, that he went to a prophetess named Deotima of Mantinea. Deotima of Mantinea,
00:36:02this prophetess, this really wise woman, and he asked her about love. How does love work? And
00:36:08it's this young guy and he wants to fall in love. He's really romantic and the whole thing. He says,
00:36:12"How does it work? How does it work, prophetess?" And Deotima of Mantinea talks to him about,
00:36:17describes to him what's called the ladder of love. Okay. Now, the ladder of love is something you can
00:36:22Google it if you want. In my new book, "The Meaning of Your Life," you'll get a bunch of stuff on the
00:36:27ladder of love. So I think it's awesome. And by the way, read the symposium on Plato if you haven't
00:36:32done that, because that's actually a really, really good use of your time, that talks about how
00:36:37romantic love leads to the deep meaning of life. It's the entry point. I'm not saying that falling
00:36:44in love instantaneously gives you the meaning of life. Here's how it works. The first rung of the
00:36:49ladder for most young people, most young adults who are most eager to fall in love, although don't
00:36:54get me wrong, I've met people in their 80s who fall madly head over heels in love. We're made to love
00:37:00because we're not supposed to be alone. Most of us aren't at least. That the first rung of the ladder
00:37:05is physical attraction to a single beautiful person. And by a single beautiful person, I don't
00:37:10mean who's objectively Madison Avenue on an ad beautiful. I'm talking about who in all the ways
00:37:18in their soul, their heart, and the way that they look to you in your eyes is a beautiful person.
00:37:25And your physical attraction to that person for all the things about them that make them who they
00:37:31are, that you have this, when I say physical attraction, that means you've got the attraction.
00:37:35And I described the neurobiological origins of attraction. You know how this works. That first
00:37:41feeling that you have is not, you're not an animal. You're not a dog. You're a human that's being
00:37:47initiated in the rights of deep philosophical meaning of what it means to be a human.
00:37:53That's really what Diotima of Mantinea was telling Socrates. Why? Because that is the first rung of
00:38:00the ladder, the second of which you need the first to get to the second. And the second is the love
00:38:06of the actual soul. So first you have the admiration of somebody's physical beauty, and then you have
00:38:12the love of their soul. So there was the initiation that brought you in contact with somebody, and then
00:38:19you can actually go deeper with the person. From that, only when you have a love of somebody's soul
00:38:24do you have an appreciation for something good that's not you. See how that works? It's like,
00:38:31so it's not all about me, me, me, me, me. And I have a, I know a bunch of grandsons at this point.
00:38:35And they're awesome. They're great, but they're littler, teeny tiny, they're babies. And like the
00:38:40most egotistical people in the world are babies. They kind of have to be to stay alive. Part of
00:38:45what it means to grow up and to become even an adult is to realize deeply in your soul,
00:38:52realize that as you looking out at a world of other beautiful things and beautiful people,
00:38:58the way that's initiated is by saying, wow, she's so stunning. And then to say, and she's got a
00:39:04gorgeous soul. And only when you appreciate the depth and beauty of somebody else's soul can you
00:39:09appreciate the depth and beauty of all of the good things in society that are not you. That's rung
00:39:16number three. From there, it's not just good things in society. Then you can go to the abstract and
00:39:22have a, and develop according to Socrates, a love of ideas of abstract concepts, that the love for
00:39:28things that are not you doesn't have to be limited to people and stuff. It's abstract ideas, which
00:39:34isn't easy. It requires maturity. It requires experience to be sure, but only from there,
00:39:40from the love of actual beautiful ideas, can you move to the love of what is most beautiful and
00:39:45what's actually meaningful in life. You can understand the meaning of your own life.
00:39:49That's the ladder of love that actually starts by looking at somebody across the,
00:39:55down the church pew or across the bar or in class and go, man, what a knockout. And then
00:40:03yada, yada, yada, as they used to say in Seinfeld, you know, four or five steps later,
00:40:07maybe a couple of decades later, you understand the meaning of your life, but you got to start
00:40:10somewhere. That's what Socrates' point. But that's one of the reasons that I find in my own research
00:40:16that people always say, how do I know the meaning of the life? And I would just spontaneously start
00:40:19talking about the love of their life, their soulmate, is how that actually works. So how do
00:40:25you do it? How do you initiate appropriately the neurochemical cascade, one that proceeds in an
00:40:32orderly fashion, more or less than the same speed that leads to companion that love can allow you to
00:40:39climb the ladder of love toward the meaning of your life? How do you solve the love depression
00:40:44that I talked about in the very beginning, looking at the data in your own life?
00:40:48Now, to begin with, to do this requires risk, taking risk. One of the characteristics that I
00:40:57find that's actually inhibiting falling in love the most, and this once again gets back to the
00:41:02literature that I look at every single day and what I write about, is that younger people,
00:41:07believe it or not, are actually less risk-taking than people were when they were young who are now
00:41:13my age. And this gets a lot to the work of Jean Twenge, a wonderful social psychologist at San
00:41:18Diego State University, who talks about how young adults are growing up much more slowly,
00:41:24and the way that she measures that is with risk-taking behavior. Now, some of it's pretty
00:41:28innocuous and healthy, like driving. Some of it's less healthy, like drinking and using drugs,
00:41:35which everybody says, "Oh, young people, they're drinking and taking drugs more than ever." No,
00:41:39wrong. A lot less, as a matter of fact. They're also less likely to fall in love. They're also
00:41:43less likely to have sex, and it has everything to do, she says, of a lower willingness to take
00:41:49personal risk. Now, risk is funny because there's bad risks and there's good risks, but risk in
00:41:56general is not an unhealthy thing. On the contrary, that's characteristic of being an entrepreneur
00:42:01with your life. And I don't recommend being an entrepreneur with your life by taking dangerous
00:42:05drugs and driving 100 miles an hour. That's stupid. But risks with your heart, another matter. That's
00:42:12the most entrepreneurial thing that you can do. Years ago, not that many years ago, I was giving
00:42:16a speech on Capitol Hill for a bunch of Capitol Hill staffers, people in their 20s. Now, for a
00:42:21little bit of background, Washington DC is the world's most dysfunctional dating market. I mean,
00:42:26it's everybody's climbing, and it's all about power, and it's just not a healthy way for people
00:42:31to fall in love, I have found. And so they were really deeply interested when I was talking about
00:42:37this topic. And I said, "Look, if you really want to be an entrepreneur, real entrepreneur with your
00:42:40life, give your heart away. Take a risk." That's the ultimate risk of putting at risk valuable
00:42:47resources in search of explosive returns. That's the definition of entrepreneurship.
00:42:51I thought it was clever anyway. A couple of weeks later, a guy comes up to me on a plane,
00:42:55because I'm always on a plane. And he says, "Professor Brooks." I said, "Yeah." He says,
00:43:00"I was at that talk you got on Capitol Hill about being an entrepreneur with my life,
00:43:04and to get my heart away and take a risk." And I said, "Yeah." He says, "And I can't get it out
00:43:07of my head." I said, "Yeah." He said, "So I'm on my way right now to tell a woman I've been secretly in
00:43:13love with for two years how I feel. I'm going to spill it." And I'm like, "Dude, it was only
00:43:21a speech. I'm not trying to ruin your life." I was kind of worried about that because I'm thinking,
00:43:26"Yeah, I mean, this could have consequences." And I said, "Here's my email. Let me know how it turns
00:43:32out." He said, "Okay." And I didn't hear from him, which seemed like not great. Well, I did see him
00:43:40some months later at a holiday party at the company that I was running, and he showed up. And he said,
00:43:46"Remember me?" And I said, "Yeah." And I said, "How did it go? How did it go with that woman
00:43:52that you were in love with?" And he said, "She shot me down. She wasn't in love with me. Not at all.
00:43:56She was in love with another guy. She introduced me to him. It was horrible." And I was very contrite.
00:44:02I said, "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to ruin your life." And he said, "No, no, no, no." He said,
00:44:05"The reason I came is because I wanted to thank you." I said, "Thank me? For what?" And he said,
00:44:12"Because, you know, that was the thing I was most afraid of in my life. I mean, I just couldn't...
00:44:18I couldn't bear the thought of that happening. And it did. And I didn't die. And I'm not afraid
00:44:25anymore." You get the point, right? This makes you stronger. Now, to be sure, it is unbelievably
00:44:34painful to be rejected. I have studied the pain of social rejection. The dorsal anterior cingulate
00:44:40cortex of the brain is designed in the limbic system to make you hate social rejection. Even in
00:44:47little games when they put people in machines to look at the activities of their brains,
00:44:50and they simulate rejection by having a ball-tossing game that you're looking at on a screen, and two
00:44:57other people start excluding you from the game, it starts to feel painful in this dorsal anterior
00:45:02cingulate cortex of your brain. Imagine when somebody says to you, "You love me, but I don't
00:45:07love you." It's going to be unbelievably painful. It's intensely painful, as a matter of fact. And
00:45:14I've talked about this kind of pain in past episodes in the past. But here's the thing.
00:45:18That's how you learn. That's the only way that you learn. What do you learn? You learn about what went
00:45:24wrong. You learn that you won't die. You learn more what you're looking for. You learn that that wasn't
00:45:32the person for you, and why. That's why it's so critically important to get into the cycle of try,
00:45:37fail, suffer, try, try again. Now, I've got a lot of data on how long it actually takes
00:45:47for people to get over their heartbreak. And the answer is usually a few months, not a few years.
00:45:53It's very unusual that you have a breakup, and it lasts years and years. On the contrary, you will
00:45:57actually get over it sooner than you think. And six weeks from now, you'll be on a date with somebody
00:46:01else going, "I can't believe I love that loser so much." That's the typical thing that we actually
00:46:06find. But also, the learning that you get is really the big, big benefit from this. There's a really
00:46:12interesting paper on this, a 2018 study that looked at 160 daters who were in their 20s.
00:46:18And then they broke up around the age of 22, which is kind of the modal age to have your first big
00:46:24breakup of somebody that you're truly in love with, it turns out. And then ask them what they learned.
00:46:30And it turns out that those who actually believe they learned from their breakup, they had much
00:46:35higher relationship satisfaction subsequently and lower relationship conflict in their next
00:46:41relationship. In other words, learn, learn, learn, do the postmortem, figure out what actually went
00:46:46wrong, and you will benefit from this. But you have to fail as part of the process here so that you can
00:46:53get better. That means take a risk and be willing to fail. What do they learn, by the way? They learn
00:46:58three things. Here's what breakups teach you. Social cognitive maturity, right? That's like,
00:47:04"I know why I behaved like an idiot, and I won't do that again because I matured." Number two is
00:47:09romantic agency. "I know what I want now." And number three is coherence. You all know what that
00:47:15is because you've been following the show. That means why things happen the way they do. "I know
00:47:19why my last relationship failed, and I'm going to fix those mistakes in the future." You only get
00:47:24that from experience. This is why people, they tend to do best in marriages, for example, after
00:47:31they've had a few breakups. Not 50 breakups, not 200 breakups. We're talking about a few breakups.
00:47:38It's kind of like a mature startup is the way that that works. A couple of false starts along the way.
00:47:43Mature startups, not mergers. Certainly not hostile takeovers. Anyway, I'm not going to press that
00:47:50metaphor. All right. That's number one. Take more risk. That's the first of the protocols of how to
00:47:58fall in love and stay in love. Number two, don't look for your body double. Look for your compliment.
00:48:06This is really important. Now, I'm really interested in how technology is affecting how people
00:48:14fall in love and stay in love. 62% of long-term relationships now are starting on the apps.
00:48:20That's kind of how people meet. I talk to young people, and I say, "Why don't you just go up when
00:48:23you're having a drink after work? Go up and talk to somebody," because they're like, "Because I don't
00:48:27want them to think I'm a serial killer." Yeah. I mean, society is very complicated, and how people
00:48:33meet actually changes. I've got a lot of thoughts on that. It's very important, if you can, to meet
00:48:38people in real life. Usually, that's actually not in a bar. That's around common interests,
00:48:43whether it's a running club or church or whatever your thing actually happens to be. But probably,
00:48:48for those of you who are watching this and you're in the dating pool, you're probably using the apps
00:48:52because most people aren't. What should you be looking for? The answer is not somebody who's
00:48:57exactly like you. One of the problems with many of the apps, the apps are getting better at this,
00:49:01and I'm very bullish on what the apps are going to be able to do. I'm not anti-technology.
00:49:05But what they've often done in the past is allowed you to curate your dating profile to
00:49:10eliminate everybody who doesn't have a lot of overlap with you beyond just some basic values.
00:49:17We vote the same way. We listen to the same music. We want to go live in the same city. We work in the
00:49:22same industry, everything. And pretty soon, you're looking in the mirror, and that is truly not hot.
00:49:29I hope that's not hot to you. Why is it that more and more people often say, who curate their dating
00:49:36profiles very, very studiously and in a very careful way, that they get a lot of dates but
00:49:42they don't have much attraction? And the answer is because there's too much compatibility and not
00:49:46enough complementarity. Complementarity is difference, and difference is hot. That's really where it comes
00:49:51down to. And again, this is a neurobiological phenomenon. Famous study. Many of you have heard
00:49:57about this. This is the Wedekind et al study in biological sciences, an old study, 1995.
00:50:03This is the famous T-shirt sniffing study. And what it was was, in a nutshell really quickly, is that
00:50:10guys on the college campus, these experiments always use undergraduate dudes because
00:50:16they'll do anything for 20 bucks. They had to wear a T-shirt around for 48 hours, working out, going to
00:50:22class, no showers. And then they would take those T-shirts and put them in shoeboxes and drill holes
00:50:26in the shoeboxes. And undergraduate women who didn't know them, or they didn't know who they were, there's
00:50:31no identifying characteristics in the boxes, had to sniff, I know it's gross, bear with me, sniff the
00:50:37T-shirts and say who's most attractive simply on the basis of the smell. What do they find?
00:50:42That those who are immunologically most dissimilar from them, the women, were most attractive to them.
00:50:49Now there's a reason for this. This is called the MHC, the major histocompatibility complex.
00:50:53You know, based on smell, you don't know. It's an indication to you because your brain
00:51:00knows so much more than you're consciously aware of. Who is dissimilar enough from you such that if you
00:51:05hypothetically have offspring, who's going to have a wider immunological repertoire? You want people who
00:51:11have different defenses than you. That's what the major histocompatibility complex actually is,
00:51:17which you ascertain through the olfactory bulb in your brain, among other ways of ascertaining that.
00:51:23You can do it through sight and a lot of other ways as well. The bottom line is this. More different,
00:51:29hotter, right? But we're not curating for that when we're spending too much time looking for the body
00:51:35double. We're very narcissistic as creatures, I get it. But the more narcissistic you are and the more
00:51:40that you're picking your dating partners as opposed to somebody who actually loves you and said, "I'd
00:51:44be the perfect person for her." They're not saying it's just like her. They're saying it's enough like
00:51:49her and then enough different than her as well. That's principle number two of the protocol.
00:51:54Look for difference, not just similarity. Number three, don't fear breaking up.
00:52:02Don't fear the breakup. I've talked about this a little bit before, but if you're paralyzed
00:52:08by the possible pain, you won't do what you need to do. So this really is tied to step one of the
00:52:14protocol. You know, if you're going into business and you're horribly, horribly afraid of having a
00:52:20mishap in business, you're gonna make bad business decisions. Now, if you're not afraid at all,
00:52:24you're also gonna make bad business decisions. But all of us are a little bit afraid. I'm not worried
00:52:28about that. But people who are paralyzed by fear almost always make non-entrepreneurial decisions,
00:52:34and that's fatal when it comes to romance. Don't fear. Now, let me be a little bit more specific
00:52:41about this. Have courage even if you do feel fear because that's really what it's all about.
00:52:47Feel the fear and act anyway. Say, "Bring it on. Bring on the risk." When a relationship dissolves,
00:52:57that they have a tendency to rate mental pain at a pretty significant level. It's slightly more
00:53:05than three on a one to seven scale of mental pain severity. People have actually looked at that,
00:53:10measured that, but it falls. It falls much faster than you think. Your brain is designed to make you
00:53:18think that when you're in pain, it's never gonna go away. The reason for that is because your brain
00:53:22wants you to avoid doing things that are painful to you. These things are threats. But you know beyond
00:53:28your just basic troglodyte limbic system that there's lots of things that you need to do,
00:53:33and that means you need to understand that whereas your limbic system is saying this pain is permanent,
00:53:38it's lying to you. It's transient. And therefore, you will walk into a situation in which there is
00:53:44possible pain. What do we know about that three on a one to seven scale? It goes down on average by
00:53:52about 0.07 points on that scale each week. So if you're a 3.5 in pain after a breakup on average,
00:54:00you can expect to feel a little bit better each week, where after six weeks, you're gonna feel
00:54:04less than half as bad about it. And by that point, less than half as bad is a pretty normal level of
00:54:09pain in your life, and you're probably gonna be dating again. And that's within six months. Okay,
00:54:13now one of the quick way to deal with this, by the way, really interesting literature that talks
00:54:18about how mental pain is affected by taking acetaminophen in Europe. If you're in Europe,
00:54:23that's called paracetamol. The brand name in the United States is Tylenol. And it turns out that
00:54:28it has an impact on this. Now, I'm not recommending you do this. See your healthcare professionals,
00:54:33but extra strength Tylenol, it tends to lower heartbreak. You know, don't take more than it
00:54:39says in the label folks, obviously, to do that. But that's an interesting thing because once again,
00:54:44psychology is biology. Okay, now I've gone a long time on this. I'm gonna go more on this. As a
00:54:49matter of fact, let me go back to where I started, which is the love of my life, my wife, Esther.
00:54:54She's the person on whom I'm gonna be laying my eyes as I take my dying breath. This is really
00:55:01a big part of who I am as a person. We've grown up together, you know, through music and
00:55:07graduate school, having kids, career changes. We've moved 20 times. We're like, you know,
00:55:14wanderers, but together. You know, we always joke, "Look, if you leave me, it's fine, but you gotta
00:55:19take me with you." You know? And so I want you to meet her because we're gonna talk about this
00:55:23together. And we do this a lot. We work with couples. She does it more differently than I
00:55:27do because she's actually... Her graduate work was not in behavioral science like mine. Hers was in
00:55:33philosophy and theology. And so we're gonna get together and talk to you a little bit about how
00:55:38we talk together as a couple, two couples that are just getting together or in some various stage of
00:55:45falling in love or staying in love or getting married. And you're gonna see how she thinks
00:55:49about it. Okay. Now, a couple of quick emails and then we'll say goodbye. Linda Bittner
00:55:55by email. Thanks, Linda. I know people arrive at decisions differently, but I don't know if there's
00:56:01a right or wrong way or if there are patterns or types of decision-makers. What can you tell me
00:56:07about this? There are different kinds of decision-makers. Now, I've done work briefly
00:56:12and there's a lot more coming on hemispheric lateralization of the brain where the right and
00:56:16left hemispheres do different things. There are some people who are more right hemisphere
00:56:20decision-makers, which is to say they rely more on intuition and gut than their decisions. There
00:56:25are some who are more left-side decision-makers, which is that they rely more on data. Men tend to
00:56:31be more data-oriented and things-oriented in their decision-making, women more on intuition and on
00:56:37their gut. Obviously, the best way to do it, I hope obviously at this point if you're a fan of the show
00:56:41is you gotta use both. And if you're a natural left-side decision-maker, rely more on the right,
00:56:47consult more your gut. Think more that way and vice versa is the way that I think about it. But those
00:56:52are the two ways to do it and neither one is actually better. One of the things that the best
00:56:56couples, the most successful couples do is that they wire their hemispheres together so they can
00:57:02make smart decisions based on each other's point of view, and especially true if they're more different,
00:57:08not more the same. Tom Fitzsimmons by email, "Quick question on the wellness front." This is a good
00:57:15biology one. "I've been using cold plunges as a coffee replacement." Why choose between them, Tom?
00:57:22Anyway, "39 degrees in the tub for two minutes." Tom, you're a tough hombre. "First thing in the
00:57:26morning and I'm loving the effects." A lot of people do. "I'm curious what your take is on
00:57:30cold plunges and what the data actually say." Worth it? We're overblown. People love it just like you.
00:57:36Phenomenal. The reason that you like it instead of your coffee is because it's actually doing
00:57:40a lot of the things that coffee does, most specifically it's spiking your dopamine and
00:57:44your cortisol, which is a stress hormone produced in the cortex of your adrenal glands sitting above
00:57:50your kidneys. Great, but there's no long-run studies yet. Very, very few studies are actually
00:57:56tracking even beyond a few months versus sauna, which is very, very well studied and extremely
00:58:02beneficial and totally safe. I'm not saying that cold plunge isn't safe. I'm just saying that it's
00:58:08not very well studied. And so you do it and you like it and that's great, but we don't know if
00:58:14long-term exposure to spikes of cortisol have effects on aging. There's a lot that we don't
00:58:19know yet with respect to elevated cortisol. So proceed with caution, proceed with your eyes
00:58:23open and as always, be your own lab. Well, that's it. We've come to the end. Let me know your thoughts
00:58:30on this or anything else. Office hours at arthurbrooks.com. Like and subscribe on Spotify,
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00:58:48life to learn more about everything I've talked about today and everything I'm going to be talking
00:58:51about in the next few weeks. And in the meantime, as you're waiting for my book to come to you,
00:58:56have a great week. Spread these ideas, lift other people up in bonds of happiness and love,
00:59:00and I'll see you next week.