illustration: Anne-Hélène Dubray

Both a Suspension Bridge and Mint Trick You into Feeling Happy?

Have you ever heard of the suspension bridge effect? It is a term used to describe the phenomena of misattribution of arousal. When you cross a swinging suspension bridge and see someone of the opposite sex, your fear of falling down causes your heart to pound. The effect was experimented and verified by Canadian psychologists Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron. Increasing tension leads to a rise in blood pressure and heart rate. People mislabel physiological responses related to fear as romantic arousal.

Therefore, it seems effective to have a date with the one you love on a suspension bridge or at least other places that give a thrill, like a haunted house and roller coaster, to make them easier to fall in love with you. You should use the suspension bridge effect only for the one you love. Another experiment proved that the effect acted adversely if applied to another person you are not aroused. Would you like to experiment and confirm the effect by yourself? But, do not experiment in front of a volcano about to erupt. There is no successful report of this.

You may feel cool after a bath, but your body remains hot

People believe that a flame is always colored "red." No, it is not. The flame has different colors which usually depend on temperature. Different colors correspond to different temperatures. "Red" indicates the lowest temperature, or approximately 1,500℃. The color changes to yellow, white and blue as the temperature rises. Looking at the night sky, you see stars of different colors, including red and white, depending on their surface temperature. The surface temperature of a blue-white star can be more than 20,000℃. It is interesting to watch the stars, paying attention to the surface temperature.

Taking a bath is recommended to cool down a couple in love. Put a bath bomb containing menthol (a component of mint) or a few drops of mint oil. Menthol will give a cool and refreshing sensation after a bath thanks to activation of the TRP channel family of cell sensors. TRPM8 is activated by fat-soluble menthol in the same way as is activated by cold and trick us into feeling cool.

If you feel cool after a bath, you may not need air conditioning. In fact, the body is hot. Your brain is just tricked by menthol into feeling cool and gives an instruction to raise the body temperature. Menthol contributes to keeping the body warm. Both love and the body are not cooled down quickly.