You know the feeling: your heart’s beating faster, your pupils dilate, your palms are sweaty, and you’ve got a belly-full of butterflies. You’re in love and, yes, you’re “all shook up”.
The euphoria of falling truly, madly, deeply in love is often likened to being high, and with good reason. Research shows that when you’re in love, you really are in a mind-altered state.
Admittedly, studying love has its challenges. A researcher trying to define love might tell you it’s “A cognitive-affective state characterised by intrusive and obsessive fantasising concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of amorance”. Recognise that? Me neither.
It would be a brave (and likely-to-be-going-home-alone) Romeo who replied to his Juliet: “I reciprocate your amorant feelings”.
But while researchers struggle to define love, scientific techniques can show us how the chemistry of your brain changes when there’s “chemistry” with the one you love.
During the heart-pounding excitement of new love, your brain releases lots of phenylethylamine (PEA). PEA functions like a natural amphetamine, so you really are high on love.
PEA triggers the release of two neurotransmitters: dopamine and norepinephrine. Dopamine is a vital part of the brain’s desire and reward system and is released in response to anything addictive, including cocaine, nicotine, and love. It triggers a rush of pleasure and so reinforces the behaviour that made you feel good.
Whereas dopamine induces feelings of intense pleasure, norepinephrine is the culprit behind the sweaty palms, hyperventilation, and butterflies in the stomach.
The final piece of love’s neurochemical puzzle is serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked with feelings of calmness and well-being. As serotonin regulates mood, low levels of serotonin lead to obsessive thinking, and are commonly found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and the newly in love.
The levels of preoccupation and infatuation we experience when falling in love are genuinely phenomenal. People report spending more than 85% of their waking hours musing about their new love.
So that obsessive checking to see whether he/she called (and then double-checking to make sure your phone’s really working)? Blame it on serotonin.
Combine the effects of increased dopamine and norepinephrine, and reduced serotonin, and you’ll recognise all the symptoms of falling madly in love.
We all know drugs alter your perception, and PEA is no exception. PEA causes the newly-smitten to view the object of his or her affection through thoroughly-rose-coloured glasses. In this loved-up state we idealise our Prince or Princess Charming, magnifying their virtues and explaining away their failings.
This may help explain the oft-reported gap between your perception (“he really is the funniest, smartest, handsomest guy I’ve ever met”), and the puzzled looks of your family and friends.
PEA also encourages couples to idealise their relationship. You and your beloved may ecstatically exclaim you “understand each other completely” and have “never felt this way with anyone else before” – but if you want to be sure, you’ll have to wait until you come down from the high.
Because the effects of PEA wear off as time passes, infatuation tends to fade within 12-18 months. This is probably for the best – though new love is undoubtedly glorious, your body can’t maintain that state of heightened arousal and obsession indefinitely.
The good news is that, though infatuation may fizzle out, long-term romantic love still gives you a rewarding dose of dopamine.
Recent research shows that the dopamine-related brain areas active in the newly-smitten are similarly active in the brains of long-term happily married couples. For these lucky folk, married an average of 21 years, the sight of their partner’s face still brings feelings of intense pleasure.
PEA isn’t only manufactured in the brain. Foods such as chocolate contain loads of it, giving the unlucky-in-love carte blanche to dive head-first into a box of truffles.
Now I’m the first to admit it’s always the right time for chocolate, but if you’re after PEA, you’re looking in the wrong place.
There’s more PEA in cheese and sausages than in chocolate, but they won’t help either. Any PEA you eat is metabolised so quickly that almost none of it makes it to your brain.
If you’re after a natural high, there really is nothing like love.
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Comments (10)
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
The author had to make the little quip” This may help explain the oft-reported gap between your perception (“he really is the funniest, smartest, handsomest guy I’ve ever met”), and the puzzled looks of your family and friends.”
It seems that nothing can be said about the male gender by an academic without some type of negative or sarcastic comment being made.
However, nearly all the great love stories have been written by men, and nearly all the love movies are written and produced by men, and just about every love song is written and sung by men.
The bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolates sent on Valentines day will be mostly sent by men.
Men are actually the great lovers, despite their negative portrayal by so many academics.
elbatxeb
(logged in via Twitter)
Oh dear.
The chip that you are carrying getting a bit heavy Dale?
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
elbatxeb
Find an academic in any university inside the country that has ever written anything positive about the male gender.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
elbatxeb,
Can’t find such an academic huh?
Not surprising. In the bigoted and feminist environment of an Australian university, the possibility of finding an academic willing to write anything positive about the male gender is extremely remote.
Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician (logged in via email @gmail.com)
A more neutral term such as "they're" would have been the preferred option, but I do see your point. Much of it has to do with the fact that most men get driven out of the arts because of the women and the completely biased views that get thrown around by them.
I did miss this on first reading, but for this one I think you may be reading too much into it. I found the article light-hearted and somewhat amusing when reflecting back on how I felt when I was in love and also thinking about how the women who have loved me carried on also.
Hope things pick up for you Dale. The light at the end of the tunnel doesn't have to be a train ;-)
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Matt
Sorry if I offended you, and I humbly apologise for being male and all that.
However I am finding it universal throughout academia that anything said about gender has to include something negative said about the male gender.
This negativity towards the male gender saturates the university systems, and now it is virtually impossible to find an academic in any university brave enough to say something positive about the male gender.
But once again, I apologise if I have upset your feelings in anyway, and I should know my place, I’ll go back to earning money so I can give some of it to universities.
Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Hi Dale, you haven't offended me...and it is nothing about knowing your place. Hold your head up high and be a proud man!
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Hi Matt,
Yes, I will hold my head up and be a proud man, despite all the negative, snipping remakes so many university academics have to say about my gender (while always asking for more money).
Geoffrey Ahern
Clinical Nurse Specialist and Educator (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Well said Dale. I'm a nurse and an academic working in a field dominated by women. I often feel like I need to apologise for the dangly bit hanging down between my legs.
A fellow colleague actually said to me in a room full of my peers a couple of years ago, "You only got that job because you have a penis." I assured her I had other qualifications and that I had not even explicitly mentioned having a penis in my CV or in the interview :)
I get together with a bunch of mates every Friday…
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Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Hi Geoff,
I have heard several stories about the way male nurses have been treated by university lecturers, and it is quite concerning.
But besides writing most of the love stories, producing most of the love movies, writing just about every love song, men have also built every university, written most of the textbooks, made nearly every discovery, and provided the majority of funding for universities, one way or another.
Why university academics can't think of much, or anything, positive to say about the male gender does seem something unique to university academics.