How to Make Old Love Shine Like New

Tara Parker-Pope, the best thing to happen to the New York Times since full-page lingerie ads, has some good advice for couples who have been coupled for more than a couple of decades. Parker-Pope, who has consulted shrinks and anthropologists and a few other people without real jobs, says the trick to reigniting the old flame is doing new things–No, not those kind of things, and Yes, you have to do the new things with your spouse. The new activity, Parker-Pope writes, can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or taking an art class
or going to an amusement park. Why must it be new? Because new experiences activate the brain’s reward system, flooding it with dopamine and norepinephrine, the same brain circuits that are ignited
in early romantic love, a time of exhilaration and obsessive thoughts
about a new partner. Caveat emptor- they are also the brain chemicals involved in drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder, but one can’t worry about every unfortunate consequence when love in on the line.
Want to make an old love new? Why not? Reliable sources report that it’s much cheaper than divorce.Read Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times.