Falling in love is fun (and intense)! From butterflies in the stomach, to feelings of euphoria, to not being able to think of anyone or anything else, here’s what happens to your brain when you find that special spark with someone. This is your brain on LOVE!
The feeling that we know of as ‘love’ is actually an irresistible cocktail of hormones and chemicals.
So what happens to our brains when we fall in love? Hormones and neurotransmitters are taking control. Let’s break down the 3 stages of love and see what’s going on:
1 – LUST: driven by sex hormones testosterone and estrogen, the endocrine system primes the body for sex, while steroid hormones increase sexual desire.
2 – ATTRACTION: a.k.a. the honeymoon period. Your mind is consumed by thoughts of your partner. Your brain may also make it difficult to see your partner’s faults. At this stage, there’s a trio of neurotransmitters called ‘monoamines’ that take over:
- Dopamine: this is what helps people feel pleasure. It gives us energy, focus, and that obsession we feel when we’re wild about someone. Your dopamine levels surge giving you that thrill when you see them. (This also creates an intense craving to be around them). Dopamine is also activated by drugs such as cocaine and nicotine, so there is no wonder some people say they feel addicted to love.
- Adrenalin: this amps up your heart to race, you sweat when you’re around your new love. Adrenalin is also associated with euphoria and increases emotional dependency.
- Serotonin: at this stage, your serotonin levels actually drop which cranks up your desire. It’s thought that the increase in testosterone as you fall in love can suppress your serotonin.
Love is blind:
In addition to the positive feelings romance brings, love also deactivates the neural pathway responsible for negative emotions, such as fear and social judgment. These positive and negative feelings involve two neurological pathways. The one linked with positive emotions connects the prefrontal cortex to the nucleus accumbens, while the other, linked with negative emotions, connects the nucleus accumbens to the amygdala.
What this basically means is that when we are engaged in romantic love, the neural machinery responsible for making critical assessments of other people, including assessments of those with whom we are romantically involved with, shuts down.
That’s the neural basis for the ancient wisdom ‘love is blind’. source
3: ATTACHMENT: after time, the attachment stage kicks in to form a long-lasting bond. This stage is ruled by hormones released by your nervous system:
- Oxytocin: released by the hypothalamus gland during child birth and cements a bond between mother and child. It’s also released by both sexes during orgasm. Promoting bonding, this hormone deepens your connection each time you’re intimate.
- Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone: promotes partner attachment but may also risk causing depression & anxiety. IE: the feeling you get when separated from your partner.
- Vasopressin: linked to territorial behavior, this molecule can, in healthy relationships, increase feelings of loyalty and cause people to feel protective of their partners.
- Serotonin: levels return to normal creating a trusting and less needy attachment.
Love is kind of like a drug, and it can also be addicting.
That romantic rush is a lot like what happens to the brain with certain forms of addiction. Falling in love is an obsession. While you’re wild about someone, your serotonin levels go down — which is the same trend typically found in people with obsessive-compulsive behavior. It’s also true that a brain on love is very similar to a brain in the throes of addiction. Further brain imaging studies show activity in the nucleus accumbens — a region of the brain that lights up when someone is addicted to a substance like cocaine or a behavior like gambling.
