WHAT LOVE DOES TO YOUR BRAIN
Have you ever wondered why you felt so good when you were in love? I mean have you considered what is the root cause that gives you the warm fuzzies and makes you feel alive again? Well, I came across an article from AARP Staying Sharp that addressed that precise topic and I will share it with you. It was called What Loves Does to Your Brain.
Falling head over heels with someone triggers a cascade of feel-good hormones and chemicals.
- New love activates the brain’s dopamine reward centers.
- Over time, passionate love morphs into compassionate love, which promotes contentment, security, and better health.
- Passion, elation, obsession, and euphoria-the heady emotions we associate with falling head over heels are initiated in the brain, not in the heart as many people think. Falling in love is a mind-body experience that may cause a person’s heart to race and have a rush of emotions that makes the victims of Cupid’s arrow feel intoxicated. New research has found that our brains benefit from both falling into new love and the steady glow of a longtime love.
Richard S. Schwartz, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School says there is good reason for love to sound stressful. Physiological responses are triggered by the release of cortisol, the hormone that causes the body’s flight-or-fight reaction, which fuels both passion and anxiety.
At the same time. Some brain chemicals go down such as serotonin, in the early stages of love. Usually associated with a kind of discontent, it can cause an extreme (obsessional) preoccupation with the one you love so you will not be able to get that person out of your mind.
In addition, other feel-good neurotransmitter levels rise. These include oxytocin and vasopressin, which play a role in bonding and attachment. Dopamine activates the brain’s reward system and induces a feeling of euphoria. In fact, imaging studies of the brain show that looking at pictures of your loved one lights up the dopamine-rich pleasure and reward centers of the brain.
Schwartz explains that the reason love acts like an addictive drug on the brain is because the reward center keeps us going as a species. It fuels attachment for procreation.
Over time, the excitable state of romantic love mellows. Cortisol and serotonin levels even out and the strong feelings of love are replaced by feelings of contentment and security. This is good for the body and mind.
“There is an inevitable shift from passionate to compassionate love,” Schwartz says. Over the last decade there’s been massive data demonstrating that social connections of all types are good for health and longevity. Love falls in that category. It is health promoting.
CONCLUSION
There are different chemical reactions that happen when you are in the initial stages of new love and also when you have experienced long-term love. Evidence suggests that the brain’s pleasure and reward systems stay active long after the excitement of a new love cools down. An image study found out that activation of the dopamine reward systems among long-married couples was similar to that of couples in the throes of early romantic love. Beth Howard says, “You don’t have to give up all the heady pleasures of love as time passes—just the stress of it.”
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