Is love something chemical?

General Science

01.04.2021

268

Love is a constant theme in songs, books, poems, and art. During our life, we have all fallen in love. That indescribable feeling, the emotion we experience for being in love. Our body seems uncontrollable, palpitations, sweat, butterflies in the stomach, loss of sleep, anxiety, sadness if we are not close to the person of interest, and euphoria when we are close.

Voltaire once said:

”She blushed and so did he. She greeted him in a faltering voice, and he spoke to her without knowing what he was saying.”

We associate these symptoms with love. But is brain chemistry to blame for all these strange symptoms we experience while in love? Let’s see.

Love at first sight?

This is a phrase that we all know, seeing that person for the first time and feeling a flash of magic. We say it’s love at first sight, but it really won’t be love at first sight. In this initial phase of love, pheromones are responsible for being attracted to someone. Estrogens and testosterone are responsible for generating the initial sexual desire.

Fractions of a second where the magic happens. Then you may or may not move on to the next phase, falling in love. Also called Romantic Love, it is the phase in which you meet the other person and begin to establish the relationship. It is full of chemicals that create addictive sensations.

The Cocktail of Love

Many substances intervene in our system when we are in love. Some neurotransmitters trigger all these symptoms that we are familiar with. These neurotransmitters are serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin. There are others, but we will focus on these.

Serotonin

This neurotransmitter is associated with happiness. Regulates important body functions such as sexual appetite, body temperature, regulates the secretion of melatonin that is responsible for sleep. From there, we can explain the heat we feel when the other person is there, and the lack of sleep when they are not.

Serotonin is at its peak when we are very happy. It is the neurotransmitter responsible for well-being, when its levels are high we feel optimistic, in a good mood. Its low levels are associated with depression (heartbreak).

Dopamine

Dopamine is related to pleasure. It is the neurotransmitter that makes us feel euphoric and full of energy. Dopamine plays an important role in drug addiction. Many of the feelings we experience when we are in love are addictive.

Oxytocin

Oxytocin is the hormone of love. It only makes us see the positive in love. It is the source of romantic love, that ideal love, where everything is happiness. Oxytocin disinhibits us, allows us to take risks, and throw ourselves into the arms of love.

It acts like a drug in our system. The more oxytocin we release, the closer we feel to the other person. However, the amount of oxytocin released depends on the culture, tastes, prejudices, values, fantasies, and expectations that we have.

There are other chemicals involved in falling in love. They all influence how we feel about the person of interest, and also when the person is away.

Does love end?

Infatuation activates many areas of the brain and neurotransmitters that drugs also activate. That is why falling in love, or what many know as romantic love, is considered by some to be a drug.

But as time passes, tolerance comes. Tolerance occurs because the body gets used to the number of neurotransmitters due to falling in love, just as it happens with drugs. You are always looking for larger amounts to regain the euphoria and energy you felt at the beginning. As this does not happen in love, people begin to feel changes. Chemical changes, of course, can be interpreted as “I don’t feel the same anymore”, which can trigger a breakup. And then comes the heartbreak or depression; lower serotonin.

Many will say that it is not necessary to explain what happens to us when we are in love. The magic of love is universal. We need love like we need air. Love gives us sense.

Love is the poetry of the senses.

Honoré de Balzac