Daniel G. Amen - The Brain in Love: 12 Lessons to Enhance Your Love Life

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.