The Brain in Love: 12 Lessons to Enhance Your Love Life

263 Pages·2009·1.37 MB·English

by  Daniel G. Amen

Praise for The Brain in Love
“Amen tackles the neuroscience of attraction like a tour guide in a candy store.”
—Los Angeles Times
“A scientist, a lover, and a parent, Dr. Amen understands who we are as couples, and
helps us to become the best lovers and friends we can be.”
—MICHAEL GURIAN, author of What Could He Be
Thinking?: How a Man’s Mind Really Works
“Dr. Amen does it again! He offers a brilliant explanation of how the state of our brain
affects our relationships and sexuality. He goes on to give excellent advice on how to
understand your own and your partner’s (or potential partner’s) behavior, how to avoid
the pitfalls in a relationship, and how to create the life you really want!”
—HYLA CASS, M.D., author of 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health
Praise for Making a Good Brain Great
Winner of Audiophile’s Earphone Award
“This book is wonderful. It gives the reader great understanding and hope that changes
in oneself can be made. If you put these changes into action, a happy and healthy brain
is yours.”
—BILL COSBY
“Each of Daniel Amen’s books contains special nuggets that can be found nowhere else,
as well as a wealth of useful, general information that he brings together under one
roof. This book offers excellent advice as well as a great deal of new information. An
extremely useful and easy-to-read book.”
—EDWARD HALLOWELL, M.D., author of Delivered from
Distraction and The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness
Praise for Change Your Brain, Change Your Life
New York Times Bestseller
“Cutting-edge technology, clinical wisdom, and heartfelt guidance come together to
create a ‘user’s manual for enhancing the human brain.’ Dr. Amen offers simple, direct,
and immediately applicable prescriptions that can change anyone’s life.”
—EMMETT E. MILLER, M.D., author of
Deep Healing: The Essence of Mind/Body Medicine
“Dr. Amen’s groundbreaking work will forever change the fields of psychiatry and
psychology. A healthy brain is prerequisite to a healthy life. Dr. Amen provides a
practical guide.”
—EARL HENSLIN, Ph.D., author of You Are Your Father’s
Daughter and Man to Man: Helping Fathers Relate to
Sons and Sons Relate to Fathers
“This book is brilliant. Dr. Amen is a pioneer.”
—JONATHAN WALKER, M.D., psychiatrist
A D G. A , M.D.
LSO BY ANIEL MEN
Magnificent Mind at Any Age
Making a Good Brain Great
Preventing Alzheimer’s (with neurologist William R. Shankle)
Healing Anxiety and Depression (with psychiatrist Lisa Routh)
Healing the Hardware of the Soul
Images of Human Behavior: A Brain SPECT Atlas
Healing ADD Power Program
Healing ADD
Change Your Brain, Change Your Life
Firestorms into the Brain
New Skills for Frazzled Parents
Mind Coach
Would You Give Two Minutes a Day for a Lifetime of Love?
The Most Important Thing in Life I Learned from a Penguin
Ten Steps to Building Values Within Children
ADD in Intimate Relationships
Healing the Chaos Within
A Teenagers Guide to A.D.D.
(written with Antony Amen and Sharon Johnson)
A Child’s Guide to ADD
A Sibling’s Guide to ADD
The Secrets of Successful Students
How to Get Out of Your Own Way

Contents
INTRODUCTIONThe Brain Is the Largest Sex Organ (and Size Matters!)
METHUSELAH’S SECRET:
LESSON 1.
Sexuality, Longevity, Health, and Happiness
NO FORETHOUGHT EQUALS NO FOREPLAY :
LESSON 2. Understanding and Optimizing the Brain Systems of
Sex
THE CHEMISTRY OF LOVE:
LESSON 3. Ingredients of Attraction, Infatuation, Commitment,
and Detachment
RULES FOR HIM, RULES FOR HER:
LESSON 4.
Navigating Gender Differences in the Brain
LOOK CLOSELY:
LESSON 5.
Brain Imaging Secrets to Enhance Your Love Life
USE YOUR BRAIN BEFORE YOU GIVE
LESSON 6. AWAY YOUR HEART:
Warning Signs of Trouble
THE BRAIN IS A SNEAKY ORGAN:
LESSON 7.
Addictions, Weird Sex, Fiends, and Fetishes
THE “OH GOD!” FACTOR:
LESSON 8.
Sex As a Religious Experience
BRAIN SEX TRICKS:
LESSON 9.
Sex Potions, Passion, and Finding the Damn Spot
MAKE IT LAST, MAKE IT UNFORGETTABLE:
LESSON 10.
Embedding Yourself in Your Partner’s Memory
FIX THE BRAIN ISSUES THAT GET IN THE WAY OF
SEX:
LESSON 11.
PMS, Depression, ADD, Substance Abuse, Denial, and
Being a Jerk
A HEALTHIER BRAIN EQUALS A SEXIER YOU:
LESSON 12.
Strategies to Improve Your Brain and Life
APPENDIX A: The Amen Clinic Brain System Questionnaire
Why SPECT?: What Brain-SPECT Imaging Can Tell
APPENDIX B: Clinicians and Patients That Cannot Be Obtained
Elsewhere
GLOSSARY
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Brain Is the
Largest Sex Organ
(and Size Matters!)
As you walk by me, millions of nerve cells spark in my brain and I
have to turn to look at you again.
You look back at me and a soft, brief smile forms on your lips. As
you notice my eyes following you, your smile triggers an adrenaline
release that causes my heart to leap with excitement.
Chemicals send increased blood flow to sensitive areas, as thoughts
of you light the emotional fire centers of my mind.
For a brief moment you literally live in my skin.
As we connect, my mind works overtime obsessing on your smell
and the color of your eyes.
You beat in my heart.
You pulse in my nervous system from the nerve pathways of my
brain to the soles of my feet.
I start to become disoriented when we are apart.
Over time, your touch becomes essential.
I crave you.
Your body feels warm and reassuring.
I need it next to me.
I sleep peacefully knowing you are near, and wake often in the dark
to feel your skin.
I never want to get out of bed when I am lying next to you.
I look for you in my brain when you are away.
Your voice sweetens the vibrations in the air.
My mind beseeches me to make love to you, again and again.
Our bodies navigate space together.
Your mind reads mine as you know how I want to be touched.
How does that happen?
You must have cells that mirror my desires.
The neurons of my eyes light up with sparks when you walk in a
room, especially if you have been away for a while.
Songs, smells, places, and pictures never let me forget you as they
trigger the memory centers in my brain where you live as if you
were next to me.
The judgment part of my brain watches what I say when we are
together so I can protect your feelings.
I watch how your eyes, face, and body move as you talk to me, to
know if you are happy, desirous, or in need of a hug or
understanding.
Even though it feels genital, the vast majority of love and sex occurs in
the brain. Your brain decides who is attractive to you, how to get a date,
how well you do on the date, what to do with the feelings that develop,
how long those feelings last, when to commit, and how well you do as a
partner and a parent. Your brain helps you be enthusiastic in the
bedroom or drains you of desire and passion. Your brain helps you
process and learn from a breakup or makes you vulnerable to depression
or obsession. When the brain works right, it helps you be thoughtful,
playful, romantic, intimate, committed, and loving with your partner.
When the brain is dysfunctional, it causes you to be impulsive,
distracted, addicted, unfaithful, angry, and even hateful, thus ruining
chances for continued intimacy and love.
Your brain is also the seat of orgasms. Some research implicates the
right hemisphere of the brain. In fact, certain forms of epilepsy,
especially those found in the right temporal lobe, have been associated
with spontaneous orgasms. In one case from Taiwan, a forty-one-year-
old woman had seizures that were induced only when she brushed her
teeth. The seizure started with the feelings of being sexually aroused,
then she felt an orgasmlike euphoria wash over her, which was followed