Spark your romance with an adventure

In a few days, I’ll be taking a white-water rafting trip on the Ocoee River in Tennessee. The first time I tried rafting was just after my husband and I had started dating. I’m not saying that the adrenaline rush was the reason we are together today, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt. We were able to share something new and enjoy a sense of accomplishment after we’d worked together to get through some tough rapids (Insert your own witty metaphor-for-life comments here).

It's a cliche we see so often in movies, where two people fall in love after they have almost died saving the world. To find out where this idea comes from, I asked Dr. David Edwards, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at Emory, for his thoughts. “Situations that are emotionally exciting, dangerous, threatening, etc. increase the secretion of [adrenalin and noradrenalin] hormones which, among other things, act to increase heart-rate and blood pressure. Noradrenalin acts in the brain to produce feelings of alertness and pleasure.”

Dr. Edwards went on to explain, “There are many reasons why dangerous/exciting situations can be conducive to bonding. Appreciate that different emotions can have a common set of physiological symptoms. In dangerous, exciting, threatening situations, some of the “feeling” of arousal may be misattributed to the person(s) with whom we share these experiences. And so the thrill of, say, a difficult rock climb with a potential mate may be misidentified as that of romantic attraction. Heightened emotion may decrease psychological inhibitions that in more ordinary circumstances act as barriers to the formation of intimate interpersonal relationships.” For couples who already have a strong bond, “arousal may also add fuel to whatever interpersonal fires are currently burning, facilitating feelings of liking or even romantic attraction for individuals sharing an intensely arousing experience.” In other words, when you try something with your partner that excites you, it really can bring you closer.