IS IT POSSIBLE TO SEE LOVE AS MORE SCIENTIFIC THAN EMOTIONAL?
Hello beautiful friends out there
Hope you guys are having a great time.Today I wish to share something that literally took me heart and brain to understand.Most of us experience this feeling at least once in our lifetime.Let's get into the journey to understand love.Hope you guys will be able to relate to it and see love as something more than just an emotion.
When I heard Salena Gomez's" THE HEART WANTS WHAT IT WANTS" for the first time, I kept hearing it again and again and this specific line really touched me,"THERE'S A MILLION REASONS WHY I SHOULD GIVE YOU UP BUT THE HEART WANTS WHAT IT WANTS."This was so true.That was nothing but love .It was love that compelled her heart to want what it wants although she had a million reasons to give up.I agreed to the lyrics.But then,I started reading about why is it that love is so powerful?Is it just the emotional overflow that captivates our heart and mind or has it got something more?Why is it so easy to fall in love but why is it so difficult to forget the ones we really love?Surely, there must be so many things going on in our body that we are totally unaware of .So we just tag it as an emotional thing only and we never try to realise the other aspects of love.So let us try to answer some of the questions that constantly come to our mind.I hope you will enjoy reading.
IS LOVE JUST AN EMOTIONAL ENTITY?
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Of course not. Hormones that play an important role in the normal physiology of our body play an important role in different aspects of love.Some of the hormones are estrogen,oxytocin,vasopressin,dopamine among others.Apart from these hormones, there are special areas in our brain that regulate the feeling of love.Let's try to learn something about them.
There is a special area in the brain known as the limbic system ,located in the temporal lobe.The major part of limbic system that is involved in love expression is amygdala,an almond shaped structure.The other parts of limbic system that are involved are:
1.HIPPOCAMPUS -It is one of the memory processing areas of brain and it interacts with amygdala when person has memories with emotional ties.NOW WE KNOW THE REASON WHY STRONG EMOTIONS ARE TRIGGERED BY PARTICULAR MEMORIES.
2.HYPOTHALAMUS -It regualtes emotions and controls the levels of sexual desires,pleasure ,aggression and anger.
3.CINGULATE GYRUS -Plays a role in remembering emotional charged events.It focuses the attention on the event alerting rest of the brain that it is emotionally significant.
4.PREFRONTAL CORTEX -It is involved in decision making in response to emotion.
5.VENTRAL TEGMENTAL AREA -Responsible for how a person perceives pleasure.The pathways for the "FEELGOOD NEUROTRANSMITTER - DOPAMINE" are present in this area.Elevated levels of dopamine increase the level of pleasure perceived.
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Now let us get introduced to a word"THE REWARD CENTER".These are the areas of the brain that are activated by stimulus that provide pleasure to us and make us want the same stimulus again and again.The above explained structures are the parts of reward system.
WHY IS LOVE SO ADDICTIVE?
The answer lies in the word that we just heard about.When we are in love,even seeing the photographs of the person we are in love with,ACTIVATES THE REWARD CENTERS OF BRAIN BY RELEASING A LARGE AMOUNT OF DOPAMINE WHICH IS THE MAIN CHEMICAL THAT KEEPS THE REWARD SYSTEM GOING .IT MAKES LOVE A PLEASURABLE EXPERIENCE AND WE WANT THE SAME STIMULUS(the company of the loved ones in this case) AGAIN AND AGAIN. IT BECOMES SIMILAR TO THE EUPHORIA OBTAINED BY TAKING ALCOHOL OR COCAINE.Alcohol and cocaine also activate the same areas of brain.
Now of course love is a better way to be addicted than cocaine. Isn't it?
EXPLAINING THE SYMPTOMS OF LOVE/STAGES OF LOVE
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STAGE OF LUST -This is driven by the hormones estrogen and testosterone in both men &women.Testosterone increases libido.DURING THE TIME OF MONTHS WHEN FEMALES OVULATE AND THERE IS A HIGH LEVEL OF ESTROGEN,THEY ARE SEXUALLY MORE ACTIVE.
STAGE OF ATTRACTION -During the initial stages of love ,there is release of large amount of dopamine and nor adrenaline.Dopamine as described earlier,activates the reward areas and addicts us to our loved ones whereas
nor adrenaline activates the fright-flight response and sympathetic system that causes racing heart ,sweaty palms,flushed cheeks,decreased appetite and,insomnia.THOSE WHO ARE IN LOVE MUST HAVE EXPERIENCED THESE"SO CALLED LOVE SYMPTOMS".Also the levels of stress hormone cortisol increases to cope with the crisis at hand.VERY INTERESTINGLY,THE LEVELS OF SEROTONIN THAT REGULATES APPETITE AND MOOD DECREASES .AN INTRUSIVE,MADDENINGLY PREOCCUPYING THOUGHTS,HOPES AND TERRORS OF EARLY LOVE BECOME EVIDENT THAT ARE OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE BEHAVIOURS ASSOCIATED WITH INFATUATION.THIS IS THE SAME SEROTONIN THAT IS DECREASED IN PERSONS WITH OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDERS.STAGE OF ATTACHMENT -These are driven by hormones oxytocin and vasopressin .These are the hormones that are released during pregnancy,lactation and help in infant mother attachment. Oxytocin is released during sex,heightened by skin to skin contact,deepens the feeling of attachment and makes couples feel closer to each other after sex.THE LOVE HORMONE OR CUDDLE HORMONE OXYTOCIN increases the feeling of contentment,calmness and security. It is an important hormone to establish strong child-mom relationships.Milk is ejected just by the sight or sound of baby by the effect of oxytocin.
Vasopressin is noramlly involved to retain water in the kidneys and is called anti-diuretic hormone.As far as love is concerned,Vasopressin is linked to behaviour that produces long term monogamous relationships.
IS IT TRUE THAT LOVE IS BLIND?
YES IT IS.I will tell you why.This is because the neural pathway associated with negative feelings that connects nucleus accumbens to amygdala shuts down and the neural machinery involved in making assessment of other people,including the ones they are in love is shut down.
CAN LOVE LAST FOREVER?
YES IT CAN.If your love comes through these roller coaster of emotions,these emotions calm within one or two years.The levels of serotonin and cortisol come to normal though the reward centers are still activated.Love that initially gave lots of stress starts giving much more pleasure.Love becomes more of compassionate type and craving & desire seen in initial stages decreases.
Hope you got an idea about scientific aspects of love.So now you can just go to the person you love and express love saying something different like"YOU ACTIVATE THE REWARD AREAS OF MY BRAIN" or may be"YOU RELEASE DOPAMINE ,ADRENALINE AND OXYTOCIN IN MY CIRCULATION".That would surely be a different proposal.Whatever we say about love is not complete.It has been a topic of reasearch since time immemorial.Whatever has been written or discovered about love is not complete and it will be a topic of fascination for the future generations as well.
REFERENCES:
1.http://www.youramazingbrain.org/lovesex/sciencelove.htm
2.http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/
3.http://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-institute/brain-newsletter/and-brain-series/love-and-brain
4.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system
5.https://www.inverse.com/article/37623-love-the-brain-formula-chemistry-hormones-attraction
What are your experiences regarding love?Have you ever experienced these hormonal flows in your body?If yes, please UPVOTE MY POST AND SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES WITH ME IN THE COMMENTS .HOPE IT WAS HELPFUL.