Celebration of Love Part 2

Love is crazy or crazy in love ? Is it true that love makes people crazy ? What causes this temporary insanity when human falls in love? Why do people act differently than they usually does when falling in love ? Wonder why when people are romantically in love, they can't stop thinking about their love one?

A study have shown that when people in love, the level of serotonin decrease to the level similar of people having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder(OCD) , depression or anxiety; which causes uncontrollable and repetitive thoughts as well as actions. The study also revealed that when people in love, the parts of the brain which are overactive are the same area as people who experience depression. Another interesting fact discovered by the study is that people with low presence of serotonin in the brain are more susceptible to fall in love and engage in sexual activity ! Really interesting fact indeed !! For more information please go to http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Hoegler.html

Having read the study discoveries, i traveled back to the time when i had my first panic attack. Yeah...ironically the first panic attack was when my first love relationship with a man was still in early stage, in other words falling in love for the first time. This is when i experienced my own level of anxiety to its highest, a mixed up of overwhelming fear and excitement of not knowing what to expect in a love relationship. Before this, I've always had difficulties and uncomfortable feelings such as being so shy when I'm around with my male friends; therefore it is even harder for me to develop a love relationship with a man. However with the help of Xanax prescribed by my psychiatrist has helped me to go through with my fear, but later on i regret in taking Xanax as i became dependent with the medicine for quite a long time.

And readers...i found the following article very informative which related to today's entry
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http://www.youramazingbrain.org/lovesex/sciencelove.htm

The science of love

When do you know if you fancy someone? What does love do to your brain chemicals, and is falling in love just nature's way to keep our species alive?

We call it love. It feels like love. But the most exhilarating of all human emotions is probably nature’s beautiful way of keeping the human species alive and reproducing.

With an irresistible cocktail of chemicals, our brain entices us to fall in love. We believe we’re choosing a partner. But we may merely be the happy victims of nature’s lovely plan.

It’s not what you say...

Psychologists have shown it takes between 90 seconds and 4 minutes to decide if you fancy someone.

Research has shown this has little to do with what is said, rather

• 55% is through body language

• 38% is the tone and speed of their voice

• Only 7% is through what they say

The 3 stages of love

Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in the States has proposed 3 stages of love – lust, attraction and attachment. Each stage might be driven by different hormones and chemicals.

Stage 1: Lust

This is the first stage of love and is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen – in both men and women.

Stage 2: Attraction This is the amazing time when you are truly love-struck and can think of little else. Scientists think that three main neurotransmitters are involved in this stage; adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. Adrenaline The initial stages of falling for someone activates your stress response, increasing your blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol. This has the charming effect that when you unexpectedly bump into your new love, you start to sweat, your heart races and your mouth goes dry.

Dopamine Helen Fisher asked newly ‘love struck’ couples to have their brains examined and discovered they have high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. This chemical stimulates ‘desire and reward’ by triggering an intense rush of pleasure. It has the same effect on the brain as taking cocaine! Fisher suggests “couples often show the signs of surging dopamine: increased energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and exquisite delight in smallest details of this novel relationship” .

Serotonin

And finally, serotonin. One of love's most important chemicals that may explain why when you’re falling in love, your new lover keeps popping into your thoughts.

Does love change the way you think?
A landmark experiment in Pisa, Italy showed that early love (the attraction phase) really changes the way you think.

Dr Donatella Marazziti, a psychiatrist at the University of Pisa advertised for twenty couples who'd been madly in love for less than six months. She wanted to see if the brain mechanisms that cause you to constantly think about your lover, were related to the brain mechanisms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. By analysing blood samples from the lovers, Dr Marazitti discovered that serotonin levels of new lovers were equivalent to the low serotonin levels of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder patients.

Love needs to be blind

Newly smitten lovers often idealise their partner, magnifying their virtues and explaining away their flaws says Ellen Berscheid, a leading researcher on the psychology of love.

New couples also exalt the relationship itself. “It's very common to think they have a relationship that's closer and more special than anyone else's”. Psychologists think we need this rose-tinted view. It makes us want to stay together to enter the next stage of love – attachment.

Stage 3: Attachment

Attachment is the bond that keeps couples together long enough for them to have and raise children. Scientists think there might be two major hormones involved in this feeling of attachment; oxytocin and vasopressin.

Oxytocin - The cuddle hormone

Oxytocin is a powerful hormone released by men and women during orgasm.

It probably deepens the feelings of attachment and makes couples feel much closer to one another after they have had sex. The theory goes that the more sex a couple has, the deeper their bond becomes.

Oxytocin also seems to help cement the strong bond between mum and baby and is released during childbirth. It is also responsible for a mum’s breast automatically releasing milk at the mere sight or sound of her young baby. Diane Witt, assistant professor of psychology from New York has showed that if you block the natural release of oxytocin in sheep and rats, they reject their own young. Conversely, injecting oxytocin into female rats who’ve never had sex, caused them to fawn over another female’s young, nuzzling the pups and protecting them as if they were their own.

Vasopressin
Vasopressin is another important hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is released after sex.

Vasopressin (also called anti-diuretic hormone) works with your kidneys to control thirst. Its potential role in long-term relationships was discovered when scientists looked at the prairie vole.

Prairie voles indulge in far more sex than is strictly necessary for the purposes of reproduction. They also – like humans - form fairly stable pair-bonds.

When male prairie voles were given a drug that suppresses the effect of vasopressin, the bond with their partner deteriorated immediately as they lost their devotion and failed to protect their partner from new suitors.

And finally … how to fall in love Find a complete stranger. Reveal to each other intimate details about your lives for half an hour. Then, stare deeply into each other’s eyes without talking for four minutes.

York psychologist, Professor Arthur Arun, has been studying why people fall in love.

He asked his subjects to carry out the above 3 steps and found that many of his couples felt deeply attracted after the 34 minute experiment. Two of his subjects later got married.

Celebration of Love Part 1

Assalamualaikum..!!

Have been quite busy lately…mentally busy to be exact…. A lot of things happened in the last 23 days since my last post that kept me from updating my blog, a mixture of love and hatred filling my heart.

It started in my office, when 2 of my colleagues who I am closest with were on Marriage Leave (both of them almost at the same time!!) which also marked the beginning of boring hours at my workplace for about 20 days. I hate boring hours because it allows me to think nonsense thought, which brought me into expressing this current post.

I admit that I don’t communicate and connect well with my colleagues at the 5 floor. The reason I didn’t mingle well with them are because of my academic background and the language that I usually use to speak.

I currently work in Investment Department which is totally different from my previous jobs, IT Department, even though my job scopes are still doing IT stuffs but the environment are totally different. Only 3 of us are responsible for IT unit, out of 80 Investment personnel, where most of them are Chinese with Finance and Economy background and they don’t speak Malay fluently although it is our national language. They speak English very well and sometimes I feel that I’m not in Malaysia… hehe

As for me, I can’t speak English fluently especially during a casual conversation, I can only comfortably communicate in English during work related meetings and discussions (ha ha..! that’s my big problem..!!); and because of the language barrier I don’t communicate with colleague often except for certain work related purposes, which are on a very rare occasion because my jobs require me to only work with my desktop and servers. But I do respect some of them who do try to learn to speak Malay with me even if it sounded funny, I respect the effort.

Because of these reasons, I feel lack of love to my current job, I only have patience for the money the company has offer me….I now noticed that I love job that require me to have some human intervention and not just sitting in front of computers all day long fixing the codes by myself….. and a family-like office environment which comprise staffs that has some background similarities as mine .. is that too much to ask for ?

Pesakit Mental Perlu Disenarai Sebagai Golongan Kurang Upaya -> Camaner Tu ?

Pesakit Mental Perlu Disenarai Sebagai Golongan Kurang Upaya - NIOSH
By: Ramjit


KUALA LUMPUR, 2 Jan (Bernama) -- Institut Keselamatan dan Kesihatan Pekerjaan Negara (NIOSH) mencadangkan kepada kerajaan untuk menyenaraikan pesakit mental dalam kategori golongan orang kurang upaya.Pengerusi NIOSH Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye berkata sebelum ini masalah kesihatan mental tidak menjadi satu topik tumpuan kepada kerajaan dan komuniti berbanding masalah kesihatan lain, tetapi di seluruh dunia kini ia semakin meningkat.Beliau berkata masalah kesihatan mental adalah satu perkara serius dan memerlukan ia ditangani segera supaya masalah seperti stres, kemarahan, keganasan dan masalah kecelaruan mental lain seperti psikosis, kemurungan dan membunuh diri dapat dielakkan.Katanya galakan bagi kesihatan mental yang baik di kalangan setiap lapisan umur rakyat Malaysia perlu diberikan keutamaan tahun ini dan disenaraikan dalam agenda nasional kesihatan utama."Di Malaysia, kita perlu melakukan lebih lagi untuk mereka yang menderita sakit mental. Daripada segi perkhidmatan kebajikan, kerajaan perlu menyenaraikan pesakit mental dalam golongan orang kurang upaya."Dan mereka juga perlu diberikan peluang pekerjaan untuk membantu mereka kembali dalam arus perdana dan tidak menjadi beban masyarakat," kata Lee dalam satu kenyataan di sini pada Sabtu.-- BERNAMA

I See You

Rasanya semua orang dah tau antara cerita yang paling hangat kat panggung wayang sekarang ni tak lain tak bukan ialah cerita Avatar....Aku antara orang yang boleh dianggap sebagai kaki panggung kat Malaysia ni...walaupun kakiku takdelah berbentuk macam panggung wayang (hmmm...adeke org kaki bentuk mcm panggung wayang, tak logik betul) ...seperti kaki-kaki wayang yang lain, aku pon pergi la menonton cerita ni.......

semalam adalah buat kali keduanya aku menonton Avatar....

yang pertama aku menonton versi 2D kat Tropicana City bersama-sama 2 org adik sepupuku yang tercinta....disebabkan tempat tu adalah tempat baru...memang boleh nak dikatakan superb la tengok wayang di Hall 1 GSC.... gambarnya yang cantik, skrin yang besar, tempat duduk yang selesa dan sound systemnya yang gempak ditambahkan lagi dengan cerita Avatar yang best, cukup rempah ratusnya bagi sebuah animation ada sedih, romantik, gembira, suspen, menyampah, geram, kelakar, teruja telah berjaya membuat aku ternganga kat dalam panggung wayang tu sampai tak sedar hampir 3 jam aku terpaku kat kerusi. Sepupuku pun merasai apa yang aku rasa, sampaikan dia sendiri telah jatuh cinta dengan makhluk biru yang bernama Neytiri.

disebabkan kerterujaanku menontonnya....keluar saja dari panggung aku telah berkira-kira mahu menonton Avatar versi 3D.... kali ni aku membawa segerombolan manusia seramai 9 orang untuk menyerbu panggung kali ini di GSC One Utama. Dan di antara segerombolan orang tu adalah kawan sekolah lamaku yang datang dari USA bersama suaminya. Untuk meraikan kedatangannya ke Malaysia bumi tercinta ini, aku dengan baik hatinya telah belanja kawanku ini menonton wayang secara percuma.

Hasil dari tontonanku aku dapati versi 2D lagi best.... sbb bagiku versi 3D ada sesetengah sudut gambarnya agak kabur pandangan mata dan agak memeningkan kepala.

So kepada anda diluar sana yang gemar menonton filem animasi, tontonlah Avatar.....dimana ia merupakan antara filem termahal pembikinannya di abad ini.......dan aku telah jatuh cinta dengan JakeSuuulliii.....