Love Chemicals

Attraction, love and relationships are fueled by actual chemicals. Chemicals responsible for our behavior in love and relationships belong to the class of "neuro-chemicals", compounds forming largely in the brain and participating in neural activity. The brain, in its turn, passes them to other parts of the body, but "in the head" it all gets started.

The Science of Love
• There are three phases to falling in love and different hormones are involved at each stage.
• Events occurring in the brain when we are in love have similarities with mental illness.
• When we are attracted to somebody, it could be because subconsciously we like their genes.
• Smell could be as important as looks when it comes to the fancy ability factor. We like the look and smell of people who are most like our parents.
• Science can help determine whether a relationship will last.

Three Stages of Falling in Love
Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in the States has proposed 3 stages of love – lust, attraction and attachment. Each stage might be driven by different hormones and chemicals.

Stage 1: Lust
This is the first stage of love and is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen – in both men and women.

Stage 2: Attraction
This is the amazing time when you are truly love-struck and can think of little else. Scientists think that three main neurotransmitters are involved in this stage; adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin.

Adrenaline
The initial stages of falling for someone activates your stress response, increasing your blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol. The hormone that makes people run or fight. But when you’re in love adrenaline causes the reaction that you’re on standby all the way. Your pupils get bigger, your heart rate goes up, your breathing gets faster and you’re not so hungry because your digestive system starts to work slower. It makes our heart race, and the palms sweat. Norepinephrine is getting released from neurons, or, simply, nerve cells in the brain, which are called noradrenergic neurons, of course. The main targets of the norepinephrine system to "ignite " are receptors in spinal cord, thalamus, phypothalamus, neocortex .etc.

Dopamine
Helen Fisher asked newly ‘love struck’ couples to have their brains examined and discovered they have high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. This chemical stimulates ‘desire and reward’ by triggering an intense rush of pleasure. It has the same effect on the brain as taking cocaine!
Dopamine is the "feel-good" hormone with amazing effects: high attention, improved short-term memory, elation, boldness and a temporary desire to explore the world and take risk. It also makes people more "talkative" and excitable. It affects brain processes that control emotional response, movement, ability to express pleasure, but also pain.
Although dopamine is good, another hormone called prolactin is immediately released after dopamine wears off, causing the opposite effects: depletion, irritability and depression. Thus, when prolactin is high, dopamine is low, and vice versa. In the long run, this cycle of "highs and lows" affects the stability of the whole body, destabilizing the nervous system and lowering immunity, thus increasing vulnerability to diseases and speeding up cell aging.
Dopamine is a double-edge sword; it can turn any intense pleasure into an addiction, however rewarding or motivating it is. Pleasures are complex sometimes. A pleasure may not necessarily be caused by a known pleasing activity; but by something else happening simultaneously. Our brain then makes subconscious connections between the two, interpreting the behavior as "pleasurable and worth repeating." This is why when treating addiction or quitting a habit it's advisable to avoid people, situations and objects related to what we are addicted to. Contrarily, it's advised to cherish the things related to a "good addiction" or habit. We can't help acquiring new habits; we can only intervene and choose good ones, the earlier the better.
Dopamine is not the only hormone that causes happiness, yet it's the one that knows how to "advertise" best for itself, by constantly reminding you to repeat a certain behavior over and over, even when you see its damaging effects destabilizing your life. Recently psychologists have found that people in the advertising business use similar seductive techniques, to turn customers into addicts of their products, whether needed or not.

The last but not the least is phenylethylamine (PEA), acts as a releasing agent of norepinephrine and dopamine . The first attraction causes us to produce more PEA, which results in those dizzying feelings associated with romantic love. Large quantities of PEA increase both physical and emotional energy and at the same time release more dopamine. Your heartbeat is increasing, you start to breath faster, and the palms of your hands start to sweat, your cheeks and genitals get an extra blood flow and you start to feel happier. PEA deserves a special attention because it is famous for being found in chocolate. You've probably heard that eating chocolate makes you feel good and even happy. And mostly, all sources are saying that it is because chocolate contains PEA.
Now you know that it is mostly dopamine which makes us feel good from the tasty food, and as far as PEA is concerned, it's role, unfortunately, has been exaggerated. Phenethylamine from chocolate is getting rapidly metabolized by the different enzymes of gastrointestinal tract, preventing significant concentrations from reaching the brain. So, when you eat chocolate, you feel good from a sweet taste, and not the concentration of PEA in it .

So, only when these three chemicals combine together, we feel the real "chemistry" of love. It is due to this combination that new lovers feel euphoric and energized and can talk days and nights long.

Serotonin
And finally, serotonin. One of love's most important chemicals that may explain why when you’re falling in love, your new lover keeps popping into your thoughts.

Love needs to be blind
Newly smitten lovers often idealize their partner, magnifying their virtues and explaining away their flaws says Ellen Berscheid, a leading researcher on the psychology of love. New couples also exalt the relationship itself. “It's very common to think they have a relationship that's closer and more special than anyone else's”. Psychologists think we need this rose-tinted view. It makes us want to stay together to enter the next stage of love – attachment.

Stage 3: Attachment
Attachment is the bond that keeps couples together long enough for them to have and raise children. Scientists think there might be two major hormones involved in this feeling of attachment; oxytocin and vasopressin.

Oxytocin - (The cuddle hormone)
Oxytocin is a powerful hormone released by men and women during orgasm. It probably deepens the feelings of attachment and makes couples feel much closer to one another after they have had sex. The theory goes that the more sex a couple has, the deeper their bond becomes. Oxytocin is also called the mother hormone or cuddle hormone because when a mom breastfeeds her baby, this hormone is produced in large quantities. When you hug or caress this hormone is produced too. It makes you feel connected, takes away fear and makes you feel confident. That’s why a lot of people need foreplay before being able to make love all the way. It's naturally released by touching, hugging, labor, lactation, and high temperature. During sex and orgasm, it stimulates the brain to later remember the smell, voice, eye-color ... of our partner, and bond us to them. Nature did this so that a male who sleeps more frequently with one female than others, becomes attached to her, and the female attached to him, preparing them both for the years-long child-raising process. A simple hug can help break the ice between strangers, speed reconciliation between friends, and soften animosity between enemies. It eases our tension, fear and diffidence, at hard moments we have no courage to face.
There are other benefits of oxytocin:
• It increases immunity & speeds up wound healing.
• It slows down cell-aging & increases life-expectancy.
• It increases mood stability & one's sense of well-being ... etc.

Vasopressin
Vasopressin is another important hormone in the long-term commitment stage and is released after sex. Vasopressin (also called anti-diuretic hormone) works with your kidneys to control thirst. Its potential role in long-term relationships was discovered when scientists looked at the prairie vole. Prairie voles indulge in far more sex than is strictly necessary for the purposes of reproduction. They also – like humans - form fairly stable pair-bonds. When male prairie voles were given a drug that suppresses the effect of vasopressin, the bond with their partner deteriorated immediately as they lost their devotion and failed to protect their partner from new suitors.