Hearts Beat In Sync: The Psychological Affects of Love

Rebecca Lewis February 13, 2013

According to a psychology professor at the University of California, the heart beats of lovers’ beat in sync or at the very least beat at the same rate which gives new meaning to often sung lyrics about our hearts beating for another. Maybe it is truer than we think?

Conducting several studies on romantic couples, Emilio Ferrer, a UC Davis professor of psychology discovered by measuring the heart rates and respiration by means of monitors, showed that their heart rate is in sync and breathe in and out at the same time.

The researchers carried out a series of exercises and talks, placing the 32 heterosexual couples a few feet away from each other in a noiseless and peaceful room. The couples had no interaction, were able to touch or even speak with each other. This is how the data was then collected.

Ferrer explained that they had witnessed research where a person in a relationship can feel and experience what the other partner is experiencing on an emotional level. He further elaborated that this study was now also showing a connection and sharing of experiences at a psychological level.

In an example of one of the exercises, the couples were sat opposite each other and asked to mimic each other but not to say anything. Even in these conditions the researchers were able to collect very similar numerical results. Even when they mixed up the data from all the couples and randomly paired up the data sets they found that those who were not a true couple showed no heart beat synchrony and their breathing patterns were not even close in matching.

It’s an interesting study which highlights how a close bond with someone you show love and affection for with the promotion of empathy can go further than emotion and proceed to a biological level which is astonishing. It could also lead on to explain why sometimes when someone’s lover passes away that they often pass away shortly after without any scientific explanation.

The research was published in two recent papers by the American Psychological Association

Sources:

Assessing cross-partner associations in physiological responses via coupled oscillator models.

Dynamical systems modeling of physiological coregulation in dyadic interactions.