FOR THE LOVE OF SPRING

How feelings of love strengthen the connection between heart and brain

Spring has finally sprung, and in its honor, let’s explore some research on love and its unexpected role between the brain and the heart.

Barbara Fredrickson, Principal Investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab at the University of North Carolina, and her team of researchers have published some incredible (and adorable) studies about love.

Fredrickson claims that the more moments of love we experience, the better our Vagus nerve functions; as one of the central channels connecting the heart to the brain, vagal tone is an indicator of good health. Basically, the more times you feel lovey-dovey, the better it is for one of your body’s more important nerves.

Suffice it to say that the feelings of love provoked by Spring’s overdue arrival will surely contribute to the general vagal well-being of anyone having endured this long and snowy winter.

Read more about Fredrickson’s research in her book Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become.