Loving someone cannot be compared to anything. It’s a unique feeling. When we are in love we notice it all over our body: on the lips, on the hands, on the stomach… Love seems to spread through our skin and our blood, taking possession of every atom and cell. That’s why there is so much poetry around him.
When we are in love we say that “we think with the heart” or that “we have butterflies in our guts”, that “we notice a hormonal revolution within us” and all this, in one way or another, leads us to our biochemistry. Do you want to know which hormones we secrete and what their effects are? Don’t worry, even when you delve a little deeper, love won’t lose its magic. It might even make it more interesting.
When we are in love, we feel alive, full of energy.
It is a very typical expression of the first moments of falling in love. If we too come from a monotonous or complicated time, we come to say “love has awakened me”. As if, before there was the other, you had been immersed in an almost useless lethargy. That energy comes from the brain, and more specifically, from what’s being produced there.
As an article titled neurobiology of love “there are many parts of the brain that are activated when a person is in loveHowever, there are regions that have a particular importance”.
Knowing that your loved one exists and is part of our lives causes the brain to secrete dopamine and serotonin, two types of neurotransmitters.
- Dopamine gives us pleasure and euphoria, it helps us to have greater concentration and a motivation that seems unshakeable.
- Serotonin makes us feel happy, and they promote the idea that “we are wonderful” or even “we walk on clouds”.
- Together, these substances give us extra strength, energy and vitality., and for this reason it seems that nothing costs us when we are in love. We feel great, and are more open and receptive to everything.
We feel connected thanks to oxytocin
We sit down to talk to the person we’re in love with, and suddenly we find ourselves saying something to them that we’ve never told anyone before. We don’t know why but the connection is such that we can’t help but think or feel that “we are home”. We feel comfortable, confident, out of danger.
- According to some studies, oxytocin it would be responsible for us to experience that connection, that intense feeling of trust. It has various neuromodulatory effects, which is why it is released when we are stroked and caressed, when we are nursed and cared for, when we feel heat, and even when we are experiencing an orgasm.
- As indicated scientific proof, “The increase in brain concentrations of oxytocin influences not only favoring a positive emotional state, but also favors attachment to the partner”.
- Oxytocin makes us generous, friendly, empathetic and makes us form and maintain attachment, as well as giving a gratifying connotation to the interaction, as indicated by the experts.
We can also feel fear…
Not everything that happens to us when we are in love is 100% positive. Oxytocin is also linked to jealousy.
When the brain detects signs that we may lose what we love, the levels of this substance decrease and cortisol, the stress hormone, increases. Then anxiety dominates us, we fear that person will move away from us and prefer another. We feel jealous.
Those who say that love is a drug as interesting as it is complex are right. However, it’s still wonderful above all else. The happiness it brings with it and that burst of energy that elevates us and invites us to climb any mountain, does not leave us indifferent but rather continues to inspire us in various ways.
In order for oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin and other neurotransmitters to play a trick on us, we must remember that, even when we are in love, we are independent people.
We don’t need another to be complete, we already are. Your company is invaluable and precious, it can envelop us and make us feel very comfortable, but it will not fill our gaps or make up for what we need to work on. Which corresponds only and exclusively to us.
In short, when we fall in love, we must enjoy all this positive “revolution”, but without forgetting who we are and that the tools (as well as responsibility) will always be in our hands to ensure well-being.
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