How to fall out of love with someone: 4 scientific tricks
Love has always been defined as something that we can not control . It arrives, like a weather phenomenon, affects us in a way that depends on our personality and our experience with past relationships, and sometimes it goes away.
However, there are times when feeling love for certain people is clearly counterproductive and we know that, although we should stop feeling that kind of affection for someone, that is an option that is beyond our means. In spite of this, there are certain habits and behaviors that make it more likely that we end up falling out of love with someone.
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When falling out of love is the best option
Although it sounds raw, to stop feeling love for someone can even be good for your health. It is, clearly, in those cases in which there is a toxic relationship between the couple in which abuse and physical and verbal violence are common, but also in those in which there is unrequited love.
The point is that the course of our thoughts does not always go in the direction we want or that produces a greater well-being. Much of this is because those memories, ideas and images that come under the focus of our consciousness tend to escape our control.
We can decide more or less in what details or aspects to focus our attention, but the issues that occupy our mind are not usually chosen by us. Or, rather, we choose to call certain memories and analyze them, but we do not have the total power to make them leave , and we can not avoid that from time to time we are assaulted by surprise: that is part of the normal functioning of our brain.
However, that this is normal does not mean that, under certain circumstances, this phenomenon of memories that come to mind, can not become real headaches; especially, if those memories have to do with past relationships, love disappointments and broken hearts .
So, how to take action on the matter? To say that we want to fall out of love is easier than to do it, but that does not mean that it is impossible to make this type of feeling weaken in favor of our personal well-being and autonomy. Below you can read some keys to achieve it .
1. Regulates physical and visual contact
Looking into each other's eyes and touching each other are two situations: both cause the release of oxytocin, a hormone related to affection and the establishment of bonds of trust, in our body. In turn, a greater amount of oxytocin in our blood and in the spaces through which the neurons of our brain communicate make the emotions and behaviors related to love appear. In fact, this happens even when you look into the eyes of certain pets.
Therefore, one of the first steps to disengage from a person whose relationship is harmful to us is make this physical and visual contact poorer and scarcer , although at that moment you want to do the opposite.
2. Learn to live away from that person
Another important aspect when falling out of love is put things easy at first avoiding having to see that person, at least for a few days or weeks . If love consists, among other things, in thinking about that person during a good part of the day, to reverse this dynamic it is good not to expose ourselves to situations in which we have to think about it forcefully because we have it in front of us.
In many ways, love works like a drug, because both when it comes to seeing the person we love and when consuming an addictive substance, the reward circuit of our brain is activated, based especially on the neurotransmitter called dopamine.
Therefore, gradually reducing the number of times it is activated will be necessary for our brain to rearrange itself to the new lifestyle. Although, yes, this is something that is hard to do and requires effort. That is why before undertaking this task it is good to imagine a priori possible excuses that we can put ourselves to go to see that person; in this way we can recognize them as such when they appear.
3. Take up routines that make us independent
To remake a life as a person away from the person we used to think about, it is not necessary to stop thinking about it, but also find activities to prevent this from happening . If we do all the things we did when we were in love, our brain will notice that the only piece of the puzzle that is missing is the presence of that person, and this incongruity will give us problems. On the other hand, if we match the distance of that person with other significant changes in our lives that are related to our routine, it will be easier for us to commit ourselves to this phase of transition.
In addition, invent new ways of living day to day will make it more possible for us to consider activities that have little to do with the life of a lover or in love, with which the possibilities of thinking about the person for whom we felt something diminish : simply, references to it will be scarcer.
In short, in the style of what behavioral psychologists like BF Skinner proposed, if we want to make our lives change, we can take into account that the most important thing is to change the environment and the activities that we are usually exposed to, rather than trying to modify ourselves without moving a muscle.
4. Work on self-esteem
Sometimes, the failure of the relationship project with someone is a serious blow to self-esteem . That is why to the previous behavioral patterns we must add a constant evaluation about our self-image and self-esteem. If not, it is easy for us to feel desperately as a person, desperately seeking to be with the other person, to accept ourselves better.
For this it is necessary to try to make an analysis as cold and distant as possible of who we are, what we do and what defines us, taking into account the events that we have lived. That is, it is not about thinking of ourselves as independent entities of our environment: what matters is to realize how we behave with the means we have and depending on our objectives and interests.
Managing the attention
Having read these keys to get rid of someone you may have realized that almost all rely on a common theme: attention. Knowing how to manage our attention focus makes us concentrate on those things that are really necessary or useful to us and, therefore, helps us to get away from rumination, that process similar to a vicious circle by which almost everything we do or perceive reminds us of that which makes us feel bad: as we feel sad, we think about what originates that, and as we think about what originates that, we feel sad.
So, the key is to intervene as much on our thoughts as on our actions to break with that seemingly infinite loop of comparisons and sadness. Begin to impose a certain discipline In what we do, although the body asks us to do something else, it is fundamental to stop being emotionally dependent on that person that we fall in love with one day. And, of course, if we believe that the problem is so intense that it totally interferes with our quality of life, it is worth considering if it is convenient go to psychotherapy sessions . In any case, the engine of change must always be ourselves.
