Author name: Liat Yakir

The Sun Magazine: LOVE DRUG From an ‘electric buzz’ to butterflies and a racing heart – what happens to your body when you fall in love

Plus how a break-up can affect your body – as well as the science behind the ‘ick’
Eliza Loukou
Published: 13:51, 14 Feb 2024 Sun Magazine

THERE’S nothing quite like falling in love. From the surge of joy at the thought your loved one, to the sweaty anxiety of getting ready to see them and the despair of not hearing from them, it can certainly be an emotional roller-coaster.

Falling in love can involve a heady cocktail of hormones surging through your body head over heals for someone is unique each time and it can feel like an intensely individual experience.

But there are some core biological processes that underpin being smitten with a special someone. And they might explain some of the wacky expressions we have to describe the experience of craving our beloved: from ‘butterflies in your stomach’ to ‘love is blind’. Dr Liat Yakir, a biologist specialising in hormones and genes dove deep into the biological underpinnings of love and the science of attraction in her book A Brief History of Love.

Speaking to Sun Health, she revealed how our brain rates someone as attractive or unattractive in the seconds after laying eyes on them.

What is love Scientifically ?

about having kids and being a mother. It sounds weird, but I was so eager to care that I used to practice it on my younger brothers.

When I was 19, I fell in love for the first time under the strong fluence of all those bonding hormones. After three years of being together, we got married. And two years later, we got divorced at the age of 28. During my PhD, I started to hear my biological clock ticking.

It’s the real one, not the one on the bench. And, uh, I decided I needed a break. So I, uh, traveled alone in India and Nepal, where, uh, I challenged all my fears and did rafting in one of Nepal’s most beautiful rivers, high on cortisol. I fell from the boat on the first rapid, and the water was very shallow, but I didn’t realize it.

And while I was saying my last words to God, I suddenly felt a strong hand fishing me out of the water. The hand was connected to a charming Nepali guy with the warmest, smiling eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. He saved my life, as far as I am concerned.

The Guardian: I keep dating the same type of person.
Should I break my own habits?
Having a type isn’t necessarily an issue – but it can become problematic when inconsistent with our desires
Elle Hunt 31 Jan 2024 | The Guardian To the Full Article >>

I often get told – by long-time friends, dismayed lovers and my gently insistent therapist – that I have “a type”. I would protest, but 10 years of data doesn’t lie. There’s a lot of fellow journalists, or other creative sorts; most dark-haired, with boyish features and – preferably – a big nose.

The word love comes from the Sanskrit word lubaya, which means to go crazy. And indeed, love is a form of madness, but it’s also a necessity for most of us. Of course, as we mentioned in this interview, there are outliers. For example, Isaac Newton, Adam Smith, and Emmanuel Kant.

They were asexual and, uh, just not that interested in love. But most of us are wired in such a way that we need another person, another nervous system, in order to relax and to feel that we belong. And indeed, we’re going to learn how that works and all these crazy and amazing things and how biology, in, uh, many ways, drives us, and not always to do the most rational things.

This interview with Dr. Liette Akir is based on her book, a brief history of love, what attracts us, how we fall in love, and why biology screws it all up. And as he does, we’ll see there are all these different forces that pull us in so many different ways.

We’ll learn about the love hormone oxytocin that makes us put someone else’s needs above our own. We’ll learn how testosterone makes us selfish, less empathetic, and, uh, more obsessed with our own, uh, hierarchical social standing, how society influences our sexual fantasies. We’ll learn that human beings are extremely sexual and, uh, that us and Bonnevos are the only two species that enjoy heterosexual sex outside of ovulation.

DailyMail : The REAL science behind your favorite Christmas rom-coms – from love at first sight in Serendipity to the magic of that first kiss

Dr Liat Yakir is an expert on the science of love who has worked on dating shows She told MailOnline that some Christmas rom-com tropes are based in science

By Wiliam Hunter Published: 05:36 EST, 3 December 2023 | DailyMail

As the cold Christmas nights draw in, there’s nothing better than hunkering down on the sofa with a festive rom-com. But, as familiar as they are, do our favourite rom-com tropes have any basis in reality? Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Liat Yakir, a specialist in the science of attraction who has appeared as an expert on Married at First Sight Israel, explained that these cheesy classics are hiding some fascinating facts about our biology. From the mystery of love at first sight to how chemicals in our spit make a first kiss so special, she says that movie magic is supported by real science.  So, does your favourite movie stand up to science? Read on to find out more.  From the mystery of love at first sight to how chemicals in our spit make a first kiss so special, she says that movie magic is supported by real science

Dr Liat Yakir is an expert in hormones and genetics, she says that some classic Chris

The Sun Magazine: LOVE DRUG From an ‘electric buzz’ to butterflies and a racing heart – what happens to your body when you fall in love

Plus how a break-up can affect your body – as well as the science behind the ‘ick’
Eliza Loukou
Published: 13:51, 14 Feb 2024 Sun Magazine

THERE’S nothing quite like falling in love. From the surge of joy at the thought your loved one, to the sweaty anxiety of getting ready to see them and the despair of not hearing from them, it can certainly be an emotional roller-coaster.

Falling in love can involve a heady cocktail of hormones surging through your body head over heals for someone is unique each time and it can feel like an intensely individual experience.

But there are some core biological processes that underpin being smitten with a special someone. And they might explain some of the wacky expressions we have to describe the experience of craving our beloved: from ‘butterflies in your stomach’ to ‘love is blind’. Dr Liat Yakir, a biologist specialising in hormones and genes dove deep into the biological underpinnings of love and the science of attraction in her book A Brief History of Love.

Speaking to Sun Health, she revealed how our brain rates someone as attractive or unattractive in the seconds after laying eyes on them.