The feeling of love is really chemicals like dopamine and serotonin flooding your brain, University of Washington Medicine said Thursday.
Two people ‘fall in love’ and get engaged within months, but really they’re just feeling the chemical oxytocin, UW Medicine explained. On Valentines Day, people give the heart all the attention when it should be given to the brain.
“Love is the result of chemical changes that happen in the brain when we meet someone and feel that connection,” UW Medicine neuroscientist Larry Zweifel said. “There are long-term changes in our brain when we connect with someone that link us to those individuals, sometimes for life. I think that’s tremendously fascinating.”
Zweifel explained that a lack of those chemicals might leave someone feeling sad on Valentine’s Day. Chemicals can also show why people impulsively love and fight.
“In terms of establishing desire, chemically speaking, first impressions are crucial,” Zweifel said. “It’s how the brain processes those initial responses and that social feedback that determine whether or not we’ll engage with another individual again in the future, or whether we will do our best to avoid them.”
If people see someone they like, their brain floods with serotonin and if things keep going well the brain will continue producing that chemical, he explained.
“It’s reinforcing,” Zweifel said. “Your brain is like, ‘OK, I can approach this person and they’re receptive, so in the future, if I see this person again, I know that I can approach them and talk to them.”
Mixed with physical touch, which can bring oxytocin to the brain, people are able to become attached and form bonds, he said.
“In humans, we think it’s a very similar action where when we meet someone and we find a connection,” Zweifel said. “There’s an increase in oxytocin, which rewires our brain so that now we have an emotional attachment to that individual.”
But the oxytocin bonds can break down over time when stress is added.
“It’s also a significant stressor, and stress can actually have a powerful influence over those warm, fuzzy feelings that we have,” Zweifel said. “If something causes a stress, it’s going to reduce those reinforcing and rewarding signals that are motivating us to socially interact with the people that we care about. It can actually have the opposite effect.”
Even Valentine’s Day, which many couples depend on to up the ante, can cause stress, Zweifel explained.
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