Meditation to Attract Love

Professor of psychophysiology and leading researcher on positive emotions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) Barbara Fredrickson conducted a series of experiments that overturn traditional ideas about romantic love. She shared the results in her book Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become. ).

This is not eternal love, on which marriage supposedly rests, and not the passionate longing of youth, fueled by hormones. Falling in love is a more earthy, simple and accessible feeling that we are able to experience every day, even if we are alone, says Fredrickson.

She calls love “micro-moments of positive response.” At these moments, we feel a spiritual connection with another person, we are flooded with a wave of positive emotions. A husband or wife, a child, a close friend, a friend, a colleague, or even a stranger on the street with whom we meet eyes — for everyone we can experience a feeling of love.

But there is a condition — in order to feel love, it is necessary to be physically close to a person. Let’s say if now your beloved or beloved is not around — you two are not in love with each other. You may be attached to or longing for your partner, but your body is out of the love zone, Fredrickson insists.

To understand why this happens, it is important to understand how love works from a biological point of view. Like all emotions, it has biochemical and physiological components. It was believed that, unlike some other positive emotions, such as joy and happiness, love cannot be “generated” by oneself — it is born only in a couple.

The three main players in the biological mechanism of love are the so-called mirror neurons, the attachment hormone oxytocin, and the vagus nerve that connects the brain to the heart. Each of them, in their own way, helps to establish and strengthen the connection with others and participates in micro-moments of love.

“For example, the vagus nerve stimulates the smallest facial muscles, improving eye contact and making facial expressions similar to those of the interlocutor,” explains Fredrickson. “It even adjusts the muscles of the middle ear so that, above all, it is possible to distinguish the voice of a loved one or loved one among the surrounding noise.”

The potential ability to love can be ascertained by measuring the heart rate in relation to the rate of respiration — this is called vagal tone. The higher the tone of the vagus nerve, the better we control emotions, behavior, we are more attentive, sociable, friendly, and — stronger and more often we feel love.

A team of researchers led by Fredrickson found that it is still possible to generate love — participants in the experiments who practiced the Buddhist meditation of loving-kindness significantly increased their vagal tone. It consists in focusing on feelings of tenderness, warmth, sympathy for another person and mentally wishing him love, peace, strength, happiness and health.

The vagus nerve, in turn, helped them experience more micro-moments of love throughout the day. In addition, the increased ability to love at the same time improved health. After all, the higher the tone of the vagus nerve, the lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and the stronger the immune system.

The results of the experiments were so impressive that Fredrickson was invited to give a talk to the Dalai Lama. “Love is a vital vitamin for all of us,” she says. “Micro-moments of love bring a feeling of happiness, strengthen health and prolong life, and the more of them in life, the better.”