Love and Feelings of Affection Can Warm Up the Body and Boost Brain Activity

Verbal declarations of love and support can leave people feeling physically warmer, a new study suggests.

Scientists also discovered that holding on to a heated object can help boost closeness to other people. They found that feelings of social and physical warmth can both result in increased activity in the same part of the brain that is boosted by verbal declaration of love and support.

"Together, these results suggest a potential mechanism by which social warmth, the contented subjective experience of feeling loved and connected to other people, has become such a pleasant experience and led credence to the description of connection experiences as 'heartwarming'," the researchers from the University of California said.

The study which was published in the journal Psychological Science tested 20 participants with an average age of 20. Close family or friends of the participants supplied either a text message of appreciation or a simple fact about them. Examples of positive messages include 'whenever I'm completely lost, you're the person I turn to' and 'I love you more than anything in the world.' Facts include 'you have curly hair' and 'I've known you for 10 years.'

Brain scans were taken and participants were asked to rate how warm and how socially connected they felt on a scale of one to seven. Researchers confirmed that the findings supported their conclusion that there is an interplay between social and physical warmth. "Given the importance of social connections for general well-being and happiness, this may inform larger interventions designed to combat feelings of isolation or loneliness through temperature manipulations," they wrote.