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‘The rational part of the brain lifts its brakes when we have a crush’

Everyone remembers their first teenage crush - the feeling of butterflies in your stomach and uncontrollable blushes. As we get older, crushes still happen, but they tend to be kept as a guilty secret.

Helen Thomson, science journalist and author of This Book Could Fix Your Life, spoke to Woman's Hour about the science behind crushes and what the experience does to our brain. Are these affairs of the heart good for us? And should we feel guilty about them?

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