Relationship
Why Do We Fall in Love: The Mystery of Love-Science
8:02 AMSweaty Palms. Racing heart. Flushed cheeks. These are all typical signs that you may be in love or at the very least, lust. Ever wonder how your brain works when you’re in love? Have you ever stopped
for a second to think about the science and psychology of falling in
love or why you are falling in love with that special someone?
The term “crazy in love” is perfectly fitting because when we are in the process of falling in love, we are in fact at the mercy of our own body chemistry.
The release of oxytocin in the brain —
the love hormone — is what fuels lifelong pair bonds.
"Love and attraction are weird and mysterious things."
What is love in science?
"Love
is an emotion that has developed because evolutionary survival is about
perpetuation of genes rather than welfare of individuals."
There's a lot we don't understand — and a lot that's idiosyncratic to individual people and couples.
We feel some strange or mysterious feelings for someone positively (can be different or same gender). Its a kind of attraction and thins feelings hits up the pleasure center of the brain.
We call it love. It feels like love. But the most exhilarating of all human emotions is probably nature’s beautiful way of keeping the human species alive and reproducing.
With an irresistible
cocktail of chemicals, our brain entices us to fall in love. We believe
we’re choosing a partner. But we may merely be the happy victims of
nature’s lovely plan.
Have you ever stopped for a second to think about the science and psychology of falling in love or why you are falling in love with that special someone? Did you ever notice love is sort of a mysterious yet natural emotion in us and it must have to do something with our chemistry to one another?
The love hormone acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain, which
is produced in nerve cells rather than glandular cells, like most
hormones, according to Psych Central.
It is believed romantic gestures such as cuddling, hugging, or kissing
could boost oxytocin levels in the body, which help enhance social
bonding between individuals.
If you want to learn how to Falling In Love With Your Spouse All Over Again
It’s not what you say...
Many Psychologists have already shown it takes between 90 seconds and 4 minutes to decide if you love or attract to someone.
The 3 stages of love
Helen Fisher of Rutgers
University in the States has proposed 3 stages of love – lust,
attraction and attachment. Each stage might be driven by different
hormones and chemicals.
Stage 1: Lust
This is the
first stage of love and is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and
oestrogen – in both men and women. I call it the premature stage of
love. We think this stage of love we may decide with emotional feelings
where most of the time you may decide to turn wrong.
Stage 2: Attraction
This is the amazing time
when you are truly love-struck and can think of little else. This phase is said to be
one of the beautiful moments of life. This is the phase when a person
actually starts to feel the love. His or her impatience for attracting
somebody leads to excitement, and the individual is left with no other
option but to only think about that specific person. Scientifically, it
has been concluded in the study that there are three more sub-stages of
attraction that portray drastic changes over the individual’s
personality. The three sub-stages of attraction are adrenaline,
dopamine, and serotonin.
Adrenaline
The initial stages of
falling for someone activates your stress response, increasing your
blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol. This has the charming effect
that when you unexpectedly bump into your new love, you start to sweat,
your heart races and your mouth goes dry.
Dopamine
Helen Fisher asked newly
‘love struck’ couples to have their brains examined and discovered they
have high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. This chemical
stimulates ‘desire and reward’ by triggering an intense rush of
pleasure. It has the same effect on the brain as taking cocaine!
Fisher suggests “couples often show the signs of surging dopamine:
increased energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and
exquisite delight in smallest details of this novel relationship” .
Serotonin
And finally, serotonin. One of
love's most important chemicals that may explain why when you’re falling
in love, your new lover keeps popping into your thoughts.
New couples exalt the
relationship itself. “It's very common to think they have a relationship
that's closer and more special than anyone else's”. Psychologists think
we need this rose-tinted view. It makes us want to stay together to
enter the next stage of love – attachment.
Stage 3: Attachment
Attachment is the bond that keeps couples together long enough for them to have and raise children. Scientists think there might be two major hormones involved in this feeling of attachment; oxytocin and vasopressin.
Oxytocin - The cuddle hormone
Oxytocin is a powerful hormone released by men and women during orgasm.
It probably deepens the
feelings of attachment and makes couples feel much closer to one another
after they have had sex. The theory goes that the more sex a couple
has, the deeper their bond becomes.
Oxytocin also seems to help cement the strong bond
between mum and baby and is released during childbirth. It is also
responsible for a mum’s breast automatically releasing milk at the mere
sight or sound of her young baby.
Diane Witt, assistant
professor of psychology from New York has showed that if you block the
natural release of oxytocin in sheep and rats, they reject their own
young.
Conversely, injecting
oxytocin into female rats who’ve never had sex, caused them to fawn over
another female’s young, nuzzling the pups and protecting them as if
they were their own.
Vasopressin
Vasopressin is another important hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is released after sex.
Vasopressin is another important hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is released after sex.
Vasopressin (also called
anti-diuretic hormone) works with your kidneys to control thirst. Its
potential role in long-term relationships was discovered when scientists
looked at the prairie vole.
Prairie voles indulge in far
more sex than is strictly necessary for the purposes of reproduction.
They also – like humans - form fairly stable pair-bonds.
When male prairie voles were
given a drug that suppresses the effect of vasopressin, the bond with
their partner deteriorated immediately as they lost their devotion and
failed to protect their partner from new suitors.
And finally … how to fall in love
-
Find a complete stranger.
-
Reveal to each other intimate details about your lives for half an hour.
-
Then, stare deeply into each other’s eyes without talking for four minutes.
York psychologist, Professor Arthur Arun, has been studying why people fall in love.
He asked his subjects to
carry out the above 3 steps and found that many of his couples felt
deeply attracted after the 34 minute experiment. Two of his subjects
later got married. Also read: Body Language: How To Tell if a Woman is Attracted to You?
A final thought on why do we fall in love:
In male-female bonds, the love hormone plays a vital role in the human sexual response cycle. Oxytocin changes the brain signals that are related to social recognition via facial expression — due to activity in the amygdala — a part of the brain that plays a role in processing emotional stimuli.Romantic relationships can lead to the addiction of a specific person such as being obsessed with thinking of that person all the time and the capacity for risk-taking to get to that person. These behaviors are thought to reflect those of someone who is addicted to a drug.
The same brain chemicals — large amounts of dopamine and norepinpherine — and the same brain pathways and structures are active when in love, and when being high on crack cocaine. Therefore, this leads to the belief that addictive drugs affect the brain in ways similar to love, Marsh says, which can help explain the painful, withdrawal-like symptoms of a breakup.
Although much is known about neurotransmitters like oxytocin, there is still some mystery left behind as to what sets off these feelings of love and who we fall in love with. Researchers still do not know enough about love like other emotions, which makes the process of falling in love a complete mystery.
