How do love and romance affect the brain?
‘Being in love actually can change your brain chemistry’
When you see someone you have an initial attraction to, what is happening in the brain?
And how does that change when you are in a long-term, serious relationship with someone?
Falling in love can not only change your life — it can also change your brain chemistry. With this holding true, it’s no wonder such strong emotions are felt when you develop a true, deep love with another person.
When you first feel a romantic connection with someone, you could very well feel an initial spark. When you’re getting ready for a date, you may feel butterflies in your stomach. When you experience deep feelings of love, it can be all-consuming.
Love has an enormous impact on the brain. When you are in love, there are certain hormones and neurotransmitters released in the body that help explain the way you feel.
Oxytocin, often referred to as the “love hormone” or the “cuddle hormone,” according to Psychology Today, is one released when you fall in love.
“It’s a bonding hormone. It just makes you feel like you’re flying basically,” Jaime Bronstein, a relationship therapist from Illinois, as well as a coach, speaker/host of “Love Talk Live” and author of “MAN*ifesting: A Step-By-Step Guide to Attracting the Love That’s Meant For You.
While oxytocin is highly associated with feelings of love for a romantic partner, it’s not the only time it’s released. Bronstein further noted that it is also released when a woman is breastfeeding.
Other neurotransmitters and hormones released when in love are norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin, according to Bronstein.
“The thing about dopamine, which is really cool, is that dopamine is a precursor for testosterone, and women and men both have testosterone. Dopamine activates testosterone. Testosterone drives sexual desire in both men and women,” Bronstein said.
The release of all these neurotransmitters and hormones in the body can lead to feelings of euphoria and attachment to another, according to Bronstein.
Throughout your romantic relationship, from initial reaction to long-term love, your feelings will grow and change.
When you first meet someone you have an initial attraction to, you can feel what many call a spark or love at first sight.
Bronstein said that an initial gut feeling is something she believes in, but deep love isn’t something you can feel right away.
She believes it takes at least six months of dating someone consistently before you can really be in love with them — but that doesn’t mean that you won’t feel a connection or spark (or lack of one) from the start.
“When you go on a date, you kind of know, in the first, however many minutes, what the outcome is going to be,” Bronstein noted. “Not love at first sight, not lust either, maybe more intrigue and interest,” she said of when you first meet a potential partner.
Long-term relationships in particular can cause significant brain changes.
In those initial stages of dating someone, you may feel butterflies form in your stomach just before a date. Bronstein gave an explanation of those feelings and how they change over time.
“The energy that you feel inside when you are nervous, and the energy that you feel inside when you’re excited, it’s the same energy,” Bronstein shared with Fox News Digital.
“It shows up, I’d say, probably just in different places in the body. So I’d say the excited energy is more in the heart area and the nervous energy is more in the stomach area, but of course, there are some stomach nerves for a date, even if you’re excited.”
“The same hormones are firing, but just less until you are actually being really intimate,” she added.
Long-term relationships in particular can cause significant brain changes.
“Long-term romantic relationships can lead to structural changes in the brain,” Bronstein said. “Particularly in the areas with social cognition, empathy and self-referential processing. These changes reflect the adaptive nature of the brain in response to ongoing experiences of love and attachment. Being in love actually can change your brain chemistry.”
On top of having a partner to experience all of life’s highs and lows with, there is so much more being in a healthy, long-term, loving relationship can do, such as reducing levels of cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone.
“Let’s say you have a stressful day at work, and you get home, and you just get to see this incredible person in your life. Even [with] a hug, you naturally calm down and to have that support in your life is amazing,” Bronstein said.
Although long-term love’s benefits are bountiful, there are challenges to keeping that love alive and strong. Long-term relationships can often become mundane, but there are always ways to add new and exciting aspects to your relationship to help it continue to blossom.
“One of the things that I always say for keeping the love alive is doing new things, novel activities,” said Bronstein.
“Not just do new things in bed, but also going to new restaurants, traveling to a new place. If you go on a walk, take a different route,” Bronstein continued. “When you do novel activities, your dopamine levels get higher and dopamine leads to testosterone.”
Bronstein went on to say, “If in your relationship, there’s been this lacking or if there’s monotony, when you do new things, it really is amazing, it brings that desire back.”
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