Health & Wellness Strategies, February 2009

Love on the Brain...

There goes my baby
She knows how to rock n roll
She drives me crazy
She gives me hot and cold fever

Then leaves me in a cool cool sweat

-"Crazy Little Thing Called Love", Freddie Mercury & Queen

What is it about love that makes us, well, so crazy? Love sends our hearts and minds racing so we can't concentrate or sleep at night. Love can make us do impulsive, brash things that we wouldn't otherwise do in a rational state of mind. Why? Well, if you guessed it's not in your heart, but your head, you'd be right. Here are some fun facts about some chemical processes that are go on in your brain when cupid strikes:

Dopamine is the most important neurotransmitter involved in attraction and arousal. Dopamine is commonly associated with the pleasure center of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person proactively to do certain things, like love and have sex (and eat and do drugs, too). High levels of dopamine can make you act reckless and brash, while low levels can bring about anxiety and feelings of hopelessness-especially when you are far way from your amour. But dopamine isn't alone when it comes to lustful urges--estrogen and testosterone play a part as the two main sex hormones involved in this process. In addition to these pleasurable feelings, stress levels rise when you are in the initial stages of attraction, so that means that your levels of adrenaline and cortisol rise as well. So that when you see your new love, you start to sweat, your heart races and your mouth goes a little dry!

While dopamine rises, serotonin levels plummet when you fall in love. Serotonin is responsible for mood and stability, so if the feelings that you have for someone aren't reciprocated, you are more likely to become extremely jealous, depressed, obsessed or even stalk the object of your desires! (A landmark experiment in Pisa, Italy showed that early love/attraction phase really does change the way you think. By analyzing blood samples from the lovers, it was discovered that serotonin levels of new lovers were equivalent to the low serotonin levels of patients afflicted with obsessive-compulsive disorder!)

Known as the "cuddle hormone", oxytocin is responsible not only for the bonding between lovers, but for the non-sexual bond between mother and child during breastfeeding. Also found in the lactation process is prolactin (it stimulates milk production). And, it does double duty: prolactin provides the body with sexual gratification after sexual acts. The hormone counteracts the effect of dopamine, which is responsible for sexual arousal. That way, we can focus our energies elsewhere, like looking for food and taking care of our families, as opposed to spending all our time procreating, so to speak...Happy Valentine's Day!