Feeling unlucky at love? Having trouble trusting partners -- and yourself -- after falling in and
out of love? Been hurt enough to think youd be better off single? Well, here are some reasons to reconsider dating and to give love another chance:
1. Dating is good for your heart and your coronaries. A study pioneered by Dean Ornish, M.D., revealed that of a group of people undergoing coronary angiography, those who felt loved had substantially less blockages in their heart arteries.
2. Giving love and support keeps you younger. Whereas feeling loved may help your heart, studies have shown that giving love appears to reduce the effects of aging. It may have something to do with the fact that giving love increases your sense of self-worth.
3. Aloneness easily worsens. When you're alone in pain, it frequently crosses over into suffering. When you're alone in fear, it's easy to panic. When youre alone in anger, rage is not far away. As upsetting as pain, fear and anger can be, suffering, panic and rage are significantly more stressful.
4. Talking and connecting with another person releases your endorphins. Just as exercise releases endorphins, so too does exercising yoursocial muscles by dating. Throw in a whole bunch of other chemicals that are triggered, including prolactin, adrenalin and PEA (phenylethylamine), and you may never need prescription meds again.
5. Love is a natural antidepressant. Being in a loving relationship releases dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Dopamine and norepinephrine are the bodys natural stimulants. Serotonin is the bodys natural anti-worry chemical (it is the one increased by taking Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil). 6. Dating makes you take better care of yourself. It's easier to exercise and diet when someone special is in your life. Even if you're at first only doing it to impress the other person, rather than doing it for your own good, taking better care of yourself has the added benefit of making you feel better about yourself. 7. You often discover youre more acceptable to others than to yourself. Being hard on yourself when you make mistakes can cause increases in blood pressure, more frequent headaches and stomachaches. When you are dating someone, you will often find that they let will you off the hook and give you the benefit of the doubt. This can help you ease up and be more forgiving of yourself, thus diminishing the physical problems that come with being angry at yourself. 8. Dating improves your immune system. Studies from a number of different medical centers have repeatedly shown how being in a relationship increases your resistance to colds and other viral infections.
9. Dating can smooth out your life and your heart rhythms. A number of studies, including those by cardiologist Bruce Wilson, M.D., of Columbia Hospital in Milwaukee, Wis., have shown that peoples heart rhythms become less irregular when they are in love.10. Dating is an antidote to "des-pair." Few people would disagree that despair is one of the worst things a person can experience. Despair is actually a combination of "des" and "pair," which together mean "unpaired." People in despair feel unpaired with love, fun and hope in a world in which it seems as if everyone else is paired. Dating is one of the first steps in pairing with another person, and when you're doing it and looking forward to it, its nearly impossible to feel despair
