American author Karen Sunde
once wrote, “To love is to receive a
glimpse of heaven.”
I would like to believe that
even individuals who have a heart of stone will agree with that statement. I’m sure at least once in our lifetime, each
one of us has experienced this crazy thing called love.
Whenever the month of
February comes, we can’t help but get bitten by the love bug or at least feel
the need to be in love when this time of the year comes. How can you escape the big billboards, mall displays
and a shower of cheesy yet sweet pick-up lines that announces Valentine’s Day?
Here are some cool trivia
that you might want to know about the celebration, love, relationship, men and
women, the heart and other things worth embracing.
The V-Day
Valentine's Day is an annual
commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between sweethearts. According to history.com, the day is named
after the Christian martyr named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope
Gelasius I in 496 AD. It is
traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by
presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards. The day
first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in
the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. Modern Valentine's Day symbols include the
heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid.
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
How can you tell a man from
a woman? Well, one easy way is to check the buttons of their shirts. Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right
while women’s shirts have the buttons on the left. And you can also tell by looking at their
eyes. Women blink nearly twice as much
as men. We can make a list on how to
differentiate a guy from a gal and can go on hours discussing it but the bottom
line is with the magic called love, people will still find the one for them.
And check this out: every day 200 million couples make love and 400,000 babies
are born. This will remind us of Wet Wet Wet’s hit Love is All Around.
What’s in a love song?
The oldest known love song
was written 4,000 years ago and comes from an area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
in Western Asia. In the Philippines, the tradition
courtship of serenading women called harana
became popular in the 1920s. It is mostly practiced in rural areas and small
towns. The man, usually accompanied by his close friends, goes to the house of
the woman he is courting and plays music and sings love songs to her. The harana shows strong Spanish influences,
as the rhythm of the songs usually performed for the serenade are derived from
the Spanish tango or habanera, albeit the tempo for the songs are much slower.
Can this be love?
Falling in love can induce a
calming effect on the body and mind and raises levels of nerve growth factor
for about a year, which helps to restore the nervous system and improves the
lover’s memory. Love can also exert the
same stress on your body as deep fear. You see the same physiological
responses—pupil dilation, sweaty palms, and increased heart rate. People who are newly in love produce
decreased levels of the hormone serotonin —as low as levels seen in people with
obsessive-compulsive disorder. Perhaps that’s why it’s so easy to feel obsessed
when you’re smitten.
Date Movie
Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate
Winslet’s movie Titanic which was released worldwide in 1997 is the
top-grossing romantic film of all-time with over $600 million of ticket
sales. The total production cost of the
film was around $200 million compared to the $7 million actual cost of building
the colossal ship Titanic in 1912. Also,
did you know that The Titanic was the first ship in the world to use the SOS
signal?
Matters of the Heart
Christiaan Neethling
Barnard, a South African cardiac surgeon performed the world's first successful
human-to-human heart transplant in 1967.
The more interesting story is while on a holiday vacation in Cyprus in 2001,
Barnard died after reportedly suffering a heart attack. Here’s a dose of fun
facts about the heart: The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to
squirt blood 30 feet. It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle
the whole body. Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for
your heart.
Kiss Me
Kissing is said to have
originated when mothers orally passed chewed solid food to their infants during
weaning. Another theory suggests kissing evolved from prospective mates
sniffing each others’ pheromones for biological compatibility. Here are some random trivia
about this great mouth experience….Men who kiss their wives in the morning live
five years longer than those who don't… French kissing involves all 34 muscles
in the face…People are more likely to tilt their heads to the right when
kissing instead of the left (65 percent
of people go to the right!)…. The longest kiss lasted 46 hours 24 minutes
and 9 seconds between Thai couple Akekachai and Raksana Tiranarat. Now, if you want to beat the record, the
perfect time to do it is on Heart’s Day.
Happy Valentine’s Day,
everyone!
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