Calm Down, Love is just a Chemical Reaction

Butterflies in the stomach? Think you’re in love this Valentine’s Day? Well it’s just chemicals in your brain.

(Photo: Lijumol Joseph/ The Quint)

It’s Valentine’s Day. Romedy Now is going berserk playing more rom-coms than the number of hours in a day. Archies Gallery is raking in the moolah and the local phool-wala is making a mini-fortune. The world over, chocolate is being devoured at a pace which is sending economic shockwaves to the Ivory Coast. Yes, the cocoa crisis is real. There will be no chocolate to speak of by 2020!

But what do you care? You’re in love.

What is Love?

Drug. Pain. Addiction. If there’s anything the 21st century has taught us, it’s that all of the cheesy tributes to love can be spoken for in cold hard scientific facts.

Numerous psychological studies have shown that when two people meet, they take roughly 200 mili seconds to size each other up. The first impression is made on the basis of physical appearance. Studies have shown how people are generally attracted to symmetrical faces and to people who share our physical traits.

Voice and smell also help you make a favourable first impression.

Brain Brew

So you like what you see, hear and smell. What next? You sit back, relax and allow your brain to do the rest. Certain chemicals which your brain uses to communicate get cracking. Dopamine and norepinephrine when released in spurts spark feelings of happiness and excitement. Your heart races, your skin’s flushed and you’re sweating just a little.

Physical contact like kissing and hugging keeps the dopamine flowing keeping the pleasure circuits in the brain lit. It also releases oxytocin – a hormone that heals open wounds, helps a mother bond with her newborn and plays an important role in sexual arousal. Oxytocin is aptly called the love hormone. Basic cuddling also decreases cortisol, the stress hormone.

Serotonin is a vital neurotransmitter that is found to be unusually low in people in “love”. Brain cells of people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are usually insensitive to serotonin.

Love. Is. An. Obsession.

Romantic Reject

When someone is dumped, this obsession tends to intensify. The romantic attraction or obsession keeps the serotonin levels low and the dopamine levels high, which intensifies the attraction. A counter-productive move, the brain actually helps intensify passion.

When the norepinephrine production is lowered, reality hits your brain and romantic rejection starts to get stressful. Interestingly, romantic rejection and physical pain activates the same areas of the brain.

Love. Hurts.

But eventually, your rejected self will accept that it won’t get the dopamanine and norepinephrine shots that it craves like a drug, leading the serotonin or the obsessive behaviour to normalise.

Eventually, you will fall out of love.

So, the next time you feel butterflies in your stomach and heady, remember it’s being triggered by your brain and all of it’s chemical juice.

Can There Exist No Eternal Love?

A scientific study headed by noted biological anthropologist Dr Helen Fisher used MRI machines to map neural responses of ten men and seven women who had been married for an average of 21 years and found that long-term relationships can be as rewarding as new love.

Happy Valentine’s Day!
Or not.