“Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?” asked Karen Carpenter in Close To You. She wasn’t wide of the mark. In a figurative sense, seeing illusions – avian or otherwise – when you’re in love with someone isn’t far from reality. That’s because being in love is similar to being on reality-altering drugs – exhilaration, euphoria, increased energy, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, trembling, a racing heart and accelerated breathing are common ‘symptoms’ of being loved-up.

The same regions of the brain that light up on an MRI scan when a drug addict takes a sniff or snort, burn incandescent when people who are in love are shown pictures of the object of their affection. Being in love has even been likened by psychologists to being mentally ill, as there are biological and emotional similarities to the mental states of depression, mania and even obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Science…

So what’s actually going on in the mushy grey thing behind your eyeballs when they latch onto someone you fancy? American Biological Anthropologist Dr Helen Fisher has proposed three stages of love, each of which is driven by different hormones and chemicals. The first stage is Lust. That’s a fairly simple one, driven by testosterone and oestrogen – the sex hormones – in both men and women. You see or meet someone whose appearance appeals to you for a variety of biological reasons and you have a physiological reaction to them.

Stage 2 is Attraction. Attraction goes beyond the physical response and fires out some other chemicals that induce ‘romantic love’. This is typically the stage where you’re thoroughly ‘love-struck’ and focused on the object of your affection. There are three main neurotransmitters that play a role at this stage: adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin.

When you fall for someone, your body activates its stress response, increasing levels of adrenalin and cortisol in the blood. Thank ‘stress hormone’ cortisol, for your sweaty, heart-pounding, dry-mouthed word fumbles when you bump into the other person.  

In her research, Dr Fisher found that newly in-love couples had high levels of dopamine present in their brains. Dopamine is the chemical responsible for pleasure, and Fisher’s research suggests that things like increased energy, less need for food or sleep, focus and being fascinated by the smallest details of the new relationship are by-products of surging levels of the chemical.

Serotonin completes the trifecta – more specifically, lowered levels of it. Speculation suggests that serotonin is the chemical that makes you think about your new love, all the time. Research has shown that levels of serotonin in newly in-love people are low, and at much the same level as that found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The third stage in your love-struck journey is Attachment – forming a bond that keeps the couple together. Oxytocin and vasopressin are the hormones involved at this point. Oxytocin – the ‘cuddle hormone’ – is released by men and women during orgasm. The theory is that it deepens feelings of attachment and makes couples feel closer to each other after they’ve had sex – and drives the desire to continue to do so, in an attempt to foster that feeling of closeness.

Thirst trap

Vasopressin is also released after sex and works with your kidneys to control thirst. There’s a connection here, so stay with me… Research done with prairie voles in the US shed some light on the hormone’s role in attachment. Like humans, prairie voles traditionally tend to have more sex than is strictly necessary to satisfy the requirements of reproduction. They also form fairly stable pair bonds – becoming couples. When male prairie voles were given drugs that depressed the effect of vasopressin, they immediately lost their sense of devotion to their formerly-bonded partners and also failed to protect their partners from advances from new suitors. It may sound like a stretch, but NASA also sent fruit flies into space to test the biological effects of radiation exposure at high altitudes, so there are lessons to be learnt from unlikely sources…

Having developed theories about which parts of the body and brain react strongly when people fall in love, Dr Fisher also analysed which parts of the brain ‘switch off’. She found that the amygdala and frontal & prefrontal cortexes – the regions associated with fear and judgment – exhibit lower levels of activity amongst people newly in-love. No wonder some people keep making the same mistakes or are attracted to ‘the wrong people’!

Fake That Lovin’ Feeling

Want the fluttery butterfly feelings of love, but don’t have someone to focus your affections on? There are a couple of ways to boost levels of dopamine and oxytocin in your brain:

• Take drugs that treat drug addition: Apomorphine is used to treat a number of conditions, including drug addiction and Parkinson’s Disease. It boosts dopamine and oxytocin levels, which could bring on love-related feelings.
• Get a massage: Touching or being touched boosts oxytocin levels. A massage is one way to make that happen – just behave yourself. Or keep it tidy and cuddle your pets.
• Take a hot bath or get some exercise: Oxytocin levels rise when your body is warmer – so hit the showers or the road.
• Eat chocolate: chocolate can give you a dopamine high – which is why you’ve often snaffled a whole slab.

*A version of this article appeared in the February 2017 issue of khuluma.