and heightened analytical thinking . Oprah.com : Tap into your right-brain thinking There may be a physiological explanation for these results . Feelings of romantic love can boost levels of dopamine , a neurochemical associated with creativity , while sexual desire can raise levels of testosterone , known to promote analytical skills . And these chemical links may have evolved for an important purpose : increasing the likelihood of sexual reproduction . In ancestral days , creative individuals may have used their inventiveness to attract future mates , while sex-focused individuals harnessed analytical clarity and short-term focus in order to bed a partner here and now . Thoughts of either love or sex could pay off in the form of children -- the ultimate measure of survival . While we no longer use cave drawings to attract our partners , you can still take advantage of this evolutionary link . Daydreaming about your sweetheart may boost inventiveness and help you come up with creative ideas , while sexual thoughts could help you solve an analytical puzzle . Oprah.com : How to fix whatever 's broken In addition , it may be that jilted lovers who want to get over an
-LRB- OPRAH.com -RRB- -- `` My beloved . The delight of my eyes . '' So says a poem inscribed in cuneiform on a lump of clay approximately 4,000 years ago . Why does love inspire such works of art ? Recent science points to a possible answer -- and a difference between the way the brain reacts to love and lust . Last year psychologists in the Netherlands reported on a study where they asked a group of young men and women to imagine taking a long walk with their beloved -LRB- those without a partner imagined taking a walk with an `` ideal '' one -RRB- . A different set of volunteers were asked to imagine having casual sex with someone they found attractive but were not in love with . Before and after , both groups were given a battery of tests to examine their creative and analytical abilities . The results : Thinking about a romantic partner stimulated `` global processing '' mechanisms in the brain , which increased long-term focus and improved creativity . Thinking about sex , on the other hand , stimulated `` local processing , '' which increased focus on the present