Love, affection, and their impact in our lives

Affection, love and caring for others, they are all emotional needs that, in one way or another, we always end up knowing their importance in our lives. They always manifest themselves when chatting about any type of relationship, or when having thoughts about the people we are close with.

However, what exactly are love and affection? Since they are words that we use without giving it too much thought nor stopping much to ponder about their meaning, sometimes we can make mistakes and see them as a feeling that is simply there when we interact with someone and start to develop a bond. But the truth is that they are something that doesn't appear our of nowhere as we socialize with different people, they is always there, and their effects lo on us can be very intense.

Love and affection

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… love is a lasting, committed state, which requires our active involvement. In “The Forgotten Art of Love”, I define love as the urge and the continuous effort for the happiness and wellbeing of somebody which expresses that, while love involves powerful feelings, a critical component of it is commitment. | Source

Love is something that drives us and gives us the strength go out there and face the world. When we talk about love we tend to think about the typical love everyone feels towards their romantic partners, there are also many others types of love. A mother who holds her son, a friend who is always there for us when we are having a bad time, a cousin that makes you feel more alive than ever. All of them are united by deep affective ties.

When it comes to affection, although we all know what it is and we have felt it it on several occasions, it is not as simple as it seems to give a general definition about what is affection while taking into account the various situations or circumstances in which it may appear. However,we can think of affection as a fondness that a person or animal feels towards another being.

Frequently, affection can be seen as another emotion, but although they are certainly related the thing is that there is a difference: the affection is directed towards another person, being or thing and its intensity can change but mostly it is pretty much constant, whereas the emotions are experienced by us as individuals and they are temporary. Usually, it is associated with feelings of love and kindness, a warmth feeling of union towards each others.

Affection can be defined as "any behavior that is meant to convey appreciation, fondness, or love, and is generally interpreted that way." | Source

It is therefore an interaction between several people or beings (do not forget that we can also feel affection for pets or animals, and theyalso feel affection for us and each other). So it is not something that depends only on oneself, but is linked to the relationship we have with the person or being in question.

Their importance

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Love and affection are very necessary for us, so much so that if we don’t receive enough of them, we can suffer from several issues, the most common one being depression, and it has a lot of influence in the emergence of personality disorders, we need them in order to have a good and healthy life, no matter the type of people we are. Since the mental state of the person is heavily influence by this, the chances of overcoming sickness are lower than otherwise, this is because our mental and emotional state is capable of affecting our overall health and the capacity of our body to recover.

They can both change in intensity depending on how the interaction unfolds, and they are expressed in many different ways, usually by investing energy to make the other person feel good (whether it is in a noticeable way or not from the point of view of the other), which can cause different types of responses as a result.

They are developed during the first stages of our life, especially when we start to perceive rewards in the form of attention and the first people towards whom we feel it are usually our parents or grandparents if they are the ones taking care of us, they are also some of the first beings we are capable to identify as our brain develops and allows us to recognize others as different from ourselves.

As sociable beings that we are and that we are part of a society, we need to feel part of the group, feel united to other people, love and affection are certainly able to help with this.

Love and affection in the first years

They are the most crucial thing for the proper development of the baby because when we are babies we need a safe environment to explore the world in order to start learning about it. The love, affection and interaction that we receive in our first years is certainly of great influence when developing our attitude towards life, a baby who has been loved will be able to face the world with proper self esteem (since his needs have been met), while one that has been neglected is going to tend to see the world as something that does not respond to their needs, that ignores him and that they distrust, the perception they have about their life and people in general will be negatively affected which will result with they seeing everything as their enemy.

One of the things infants learn early in life is that their actions affect others' responses—they sense that they're active agents in their environment, so the world isn't just a sound and light show. They learn that probably most readily through other people because people are responsive to babies. Babies catch on very quickly that their actions get a predictable response—you know, "I smile, Mom smiles back"—. | Source

As we grow and become older, our needs are broadened, we start to engage with other people and beings apart from the ones who usually take care of us. We begin to make the first friendships and connections with other ones that are similar. Eventually the child starts to absorb not only the love he receives but also the values he learns from the family, and the most appropriate ways of acting.

Love and affection in the teens and in adulthood.

But these 2 are not only important when we are small kids or babies, when we are teens, a stage as we all know in which we need much understanding from our parents and in which we learn how to relate and experience changes that make us more interested in others.

The experiences that we have went through, as well as the love received so far, will be important when it comes to achieving a proper identity and good self-esteem. Also a new kind of love begins to develop as well, the romantic type, giving place to first sexual relationships.

Once we reach adulthood, the need for affection continues and will continue throughout life. While there are individuals who do not enjoy having company, we all usually want to interact and socialize with other people. Social relationships in adulthood are now more complex, but our social skills also improve accordingly. When it comes to romantic relationships, they become one of our priorities, but in a wiser way compared with our teen years. Family, friends, partner, children will make us feel love and affection with different intensities depending of course, on the type of relationship there is.

Love and affection in old age

The number of older people is increasing throughout the world. As individuals grow older, they are faced with numerous physical, psychological and social role changes that challenge their sense of self and capacity to live happily. Depression and loneliness are considered to be the major problems leading to impaired quality of life among elderly persons. | Source

Old age is a difficult stage in which little by little people are losing physical and mental faculties.

It is a part of our lives in which its necessary to receive love and caring from our family, otherwise the person will have a bigger risk to get sick and will have a hard time recovering from any health related issue.

Conclusion

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From babies to old people, we will always have the need of experiencing warmth social interactions that make us feel good every single time.

We are designed to feel love and affection, it is a natural thing, and it is another example of the complex needs we all have in order to have a proper and fulfilled life.