This is it. This is the feeling you have been searching for, that euphoric I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, and I can’t stop smiling and dancing splendor. This entire book has been leading up to this point. This is that moment that so many writers and artists have tried to understand, the place Senator William Proxmire said was better left to “poets and mystics, to Irving Berlin, and to thousands of high school and college bull sessions.” 150 It’s the thing you’ve been searching for, that unique, indescribably delicious, joyful insanity we crave called falling in love.
Somewhere during the dating phase, neurotransmitters increase, causing your body to produce more receptors, which are filled with those neurotransmitters until they reach a pinnacle. On the other side of this, you fall in love and lose your mind. Sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? Well, it really is.
Romance is an idealized view of reality, an altered view acquired through love’s magical porthole of temporary insanity. When you fall in love, parts of your brain shut down, which allows both partners to get past their fears and become vulnerable. This puts you both in a position of maximum togetherness. Mother Nature lowers your resistance and makes you neurotic, obsessed, excited, and foolish: here is a person who thinks you’re the most amazing creature on this planet, and—lucky you—you just happen to feel the same way about them.
CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE
When two people fall in love, it can be like announcing the winner on a game show. As the victor is proclaimed, the lights start flashing, confetti falls from the rafters, and helium balloons are released—as friends and family run up onstage to hug and kiss the winner. The light over the losing opponent is turned off, and he or she is quickly whisked offstage. Then theme music plays as the camera follows the visibly excited winner, as he or she gushes over the prizes.
The mental image you just formed is a lot like what happens in a brain that’s high on love. Certain parts of it are dimmed and taken off-line, while other supercharged regions take center stage. Some neurotransmitters drop like falling confetti, while others rise like helium balloons. You bubble and gush with enthusiasm as you realize you have won the ultimate evolutionary grand prize—you have fallen in love.
Inside your skull, your serotonin level plunges while your cortisol level skyrockets. Your oxytocin level reaches an all-time high. If you’re a man, your testosterone level plummets. If you’re a woman, your testosterone level surges. Your amygdala goes on vacation and takes the Judge, your ventromedial prefrontal cortex, with it. Normal brain activity shifts. This upheaval is facilitated by the release of a type of “Miracle-Gro,” which causes new circuits to be formed.
There is a flood of activity, but you’re not concerned with any of this because you’re pleasantly distracted. As your brain is being rewired, all you want to do is roll around in bed, kissing, nuzzling, and delighting in the knowledge that you have just discovered the most perfect person in the world for you. This is the masterpiece of magnificence you have been looking for all your life. You may even feel like this beautiful creature has somehow provided a piece of you that you felt you were missing. As long as you’re with your cuddle bunny, you feel whole, complete, and loved. When your darling is close, life is wonderfully and effortlessly sweet.
It’s amazing. But it’s also absolutely insane.
PARTS OF YOUR BRAIN ARE DEACTIVATED
Falling in love delivers a sort of one-two punch to your brain. It causes “large portions of thinking parts of the brain, including the frontal, parietal and middle temporal cortexes, to be deactivated.” 151 This is important, so let me repeat it: vast sections of the highly revered, thinking part of your brain are shut down, turned off, go off-line, stop functioning, etcetera—you get my point? That’s right: your grand culmination of human evolution first grows dim and then falls asleep. You’re officially love-struck (or should I say dumbstruck?).
Not only that, but the parts of your brain needed for critical judgment are also gone. While you were dating, your ventromedial prefrontal cortex (your Judge) and your amygdala were highly active. They were busy evaluating your potential lover and sounding the alarm if necessary. But once you fall in love, all that changes.
Andreas Bartels, at the University of London, found that the judge and the amygdala both become deactivated.152 They are sent on a much-needed vacation. Once you fall in love, your decision has been made. You have selected the person you want to be with and there’s no turning back. Therefore, Mother Nature dismisses your Judge, since you’re no longer in need of adjudication. And just to remove any doubt, Mother Nature removes your alarm system too. This is why the dating phase is so critical. Once you fall in love, you will lose all objectivity.
It’s important to carefully choose while dating, because when you fall in love, the parts of your brain that judge and protect are not functioning.
This can be a nightmare, because you can no longer see any of your beloved’s faults. If you don’t conduct a careful evaluation during the courtship phase, the mental short-circuiting that happens during this phase can make you miss an important shortcoming. As British neurobiologist Semir Zeki muses, “When deeply in love, we suspend those critical judgments that we otherwise use to assess other people. We are often surprised by the choice of a partner that someone makes, asking futilely whether they have taken leave of their senses. In fact, they have.” 153
This can also be a very beautiful thing, for you no longer see any of your beloved’s faults. Pat Mumbay, professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences and codirector of the Loyola Sexual Wellness Clinic at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, explains, “The phrase ‘love is blind’ is a valid notion because we tend to idealize our partner and see only things that we want to see in early stages of the relationship. Outsiders may have a much more objective and rational perspective on the partnership than the two people involved do.” 154
Andreas Bartels, at the University of London, found that the area of your brain* involved in “theory of mind” tasks, that is, the ability to distinguish one’s desires, beliefs, and intentions from another person’s, also become deactivated.155 You can no longer distinguish your dreams and desires from your beloved’s. It’s as if you both want the same exact things from life. Your goals are his goals.
Fortunately, the London researchers describe this phenomena as a selective suspension. You can still judge the quality of a book or another person. You also have the ability to have theory of mind with another person, as long as that person is not your beloved. It appears that the deactivation only happens with the one you love.156
This deactivation of your inner judge is important. Your judge is what separates you from other people. When your judge is active, you may say to yourself, “I’m better than them; they are better than me; I’m prettier, uglier, smarter, dumber, more than, less than,” and so on. You judge yourself as different in some way from other people. But when your judge is mute, it can feel as if there is no difference, you’re alike, the same; it’s as if you’re one with your beloved.
This anomaly can be an affirming characteristic, similar to that of a mother gazing at her perfect child. You can’t see your beloved’s faults. He or she is flawless in your eyes. When you’re looking at each other, you see nothing but a magnificent being. You both feel this reflected in each other. It’s this quality of falling in love that provides warmth and love, as well as nurturing esteem, to the recipient. It can be a magical gift exchanged by a couple.
*This area includes the medial prefrontal cortex, the parietal temporal junction, and the temporal poles.
Interestingly, one study found that the level of deactivation may predict longevity. In a joint study conducted by several New York universities and universities in China, researchers found that couples who stayed together for forty months after the beginning of a relationship showed less activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (your Judge) early in the relationship.157 In other words, when your Judge is still very active early in the relationship, the chances of you staying together are lessened. Thus, at this point in the relationship, between six months and one year, if you’re still having doubts, chances are pretty good the relationship may not last.
Lingering doubts within a relationship between the span of six months to one year are indications of relationship trouble.
There’s one more thing that happens when your Judge deactivates. It’s not just the ability to judge your beloved’s actions that you lose, but you also lose the ability to judge your own. Sometimes the craziest things seem reasonable and prudent. You may rationalize skipping work so you two can spend the day in bed together, giggling that you really are sick (lovesick, that is). Love can make you do strange things—things that would not be within the realm of consideration during any other time in your life.
Take, for example, the case of Joseph Andrew Dekenipp. On February 14, 2014, Joseph scaled two twelve-foot-high fences, crawled through skin-shredding razor wire, and added multiple years to his less-than-one-year sentence to break out of jail in Pinal County, Arizona.
Now, this may not seem surprising. You might think a lot of people try to break out of jail. But Joseph didn’t break out of jail with a well-thought-out escape plan or with the intention of hiding from the law and starting a new life. No, Joseph took a relatively minor sentence and drastically compounded it by breaking out to have a very brief Valentine’s Day dinner with his sweetheart in public. That’s right; this love-drunk Prince Charming didn’t try to hide his love. In fact, he was arrested just three hours after his daring escape. He was found having a romantic dinner with his girlfriend at the Gallopin’ Goose Saloon and Grill, just thirteen miles away from the jail.
He was easy to find because “Officials said he told inmates he was broken-hearted being away from his girlfriend for so long.” 158 They just had to find her to find him. Love can make you lose your mind; you can “rationalize” spending several more long years locked up just to have a few precious minutes with your lover on Valentine’s Day.
Your ventromedial prefrontal cortex is also involved with something scientists call self-processing. That’s the ability to understand “mine” from “not mine” or “me” from “not me.” 159 When your Judge is off-line, you feel less like separate people and more connected. There is no longer “mine” and “his” but “ours.” This is where you move from “him and me” to “us.” It’s as if you and your beloved become one.
In addition, when you fall in love, activity in your frontal lobe is temporarily suspended.160 This means more than just your Judge, the larger thinking part of your brain, is debilitated; you can even lose the ability to concentrate. As researcher Henk van Steenbergen from Leiden University discovered, the more in love you are, the less focused you become. In his study, forty-three participants who had been in love for six months or less were asked to perform a number of tasks where they had to discriminate irrelevant information from relevant information. He found that the more intensely in love a person was, the less he or she was able to focus on the task. The intensity and lack of focus appeared to be most acute in the beginning of the relationship. In response to his findings, Van Steenbergen stated, “When you have just become involved in a romantic relationship you’ll probably find it harder to focus on other things, because you spend a large part of your cognitive resources on thinking of your beloved.” 161
But let’s get back to the good parts again for just a moment. Because some of these deactivated areas—the cortical zone, along with the parietal cortex and parts of the temporal lobe—are commonly involved in negative emotions, you see the world differently.162 Those old negative voices that told you you’re not good enough are quieted. This is one of the greatest things about being in love. You feel amazing, relieved of the burden of negativity. In fact, Bartels observed that deactivation of these areas have proven to be a successful treatment against depression.163
It’s as if you’ve become a star in your own animated movie. Pharrell Williams glides out singing Happy, as you walk, with birds flying around your head and small woodland creatures bounding over to greet you.
HIS TESTOSTERONE
Recall that a man can be reluctant about falling in love because once he does, his testosterone level takes a nosedive. The biological fact that testosterone levels fall is enough to indicate that love is much more than just sex.
Testosterone increases following sexual intercourse.164 Since young lovers tend to be quite amorous, you would expect to see a rise (yes, both physically and hormonally). As Anil Ananthaswamy states in New Scientist, “If love was just about sex, we would expect the man’s testosterone to increase and stay high.” 165 However, it doesn’t. It does just the opposite. During this phase of love, a man’s testosterone levels plummet.
The ancient story of Samson and Delilah teaches us a valuable biological lesson. In the story, Samson had superhuman strength, like a man with turbocharged testosterone. But he also had two weaknesses: an attraction to an untrustworthy woman and his hair. If Samson cut his hair, he would lose his physical strength.
When Samson fell in love with Delilah, he made the mistake of telling her the secret of his strength. After learning of his weakness, Delilah betrayed Samson and made a deal with his enemies. In exchange for riches, she cut off Samson’s hair, causing him to become as weak as any other man. Now that Samson had lost his superhuman strength, he could be seized.
The subtle biological moral to the story is that when a man falls in love, he becomes vulnerable—his strength diminishes. His source of strength, his testosterone, decreases. The real story of Samson and Delilah was that Delilah really never had to do anything, because as soon as Samson fell in love, he was already a goner.
Although testosterone tends to drop with a committed relationship, there is something else that can cause his hormone to free-fall even further. There is something else that can zap his strength, something that can devastate his masculinity. What is it? Fatherhood.
As Professor Gangestad at the University of New Mexico states, “Probably the most effective way, short of castration, for men to reduce testosterone levels is to have a child.” 166 This, of course, makes biological sense. A mother and child’s survival increases if she has the father to help her. Therefore, Mother Nature helps her out by lowering his testosterone even further. This lowering of his testosterone appears to have a protective effect for the relationship. With lower testosterone, a man is less sexually attracted and less likely to want to compete for a new woman’s attention. In addition, even if he wanted to fool around, he might have some trouble. Not only has his stamina been zapped, his lower testosterone is probably shrinking his hippocampus. If you recall, the hippocampus is where he stores his directional memory of where all the women are located. Therefore, as a man commits to one woman, the other women’s locations slowly fade away.
This loss of testosterone is not as bad as it first looks. In a Harvard University study, Peter Gray and his team decided to sample the testosterone of both single and committed men at different points throughout the day. Their results confirmed that committed men (not necessarily married) have lower testosterone levels than single men. However, interestingly, the team found that committed men had lower testosterone levels only in samples collected later in the day. It appeared that all the men woke up with relatively high testosterone levels, but by the day’s end, the committed men’s levels dropped substantially, while the single guys’ levels remained the same.167
This makes perfect biological sense. Our committed guy still needs to get out and hunt, protect, and generally get some work done. But right around sunset, when the single guy’s ready to go out and party, our committed guy is losing his stamina and probably some memory. Instead of going out and competing with the other men, the lower testosterone in the committed guy makes him feel more like going home. By cutting his testosterone, Mother Nature fuels his incentive to return to his family. Why would he go out with rapidly dwindling testosterone and try to compete against fully fortified men for a new woman when he has a perfectly good woman waiting at home?
In addition, if you recall, he has a special spot in this hypothalamus called the “pursuit spot.” This is what activates his chase behavior. His pursuit spot is sensitive to testosterone. Therefore, as his levels drop, his pursuit spot starts to shrink.168 This further zaps his desire to chase others.
Now, you might be wondering, “Would his lower testosterone affect his sex life?” That would be a great concern, since you know that testosterone and sexual desire are linked. But Mother Nature has an answer for that also. A study from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom found that the combination of dopamine and oxytocin has a positive influence on male sexual activity, including penile erection.169 In other words, as these two other neurotransmitters increase when he falls in love, it appears they may help compensate for the lower testosterone. Now that our committed and in-love guy has lower testosterone, it allows oxytocin to have an effect.
STUCK ON YOU WITH OXYTOGIN
In a joint study with Yale University and Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, researchers looked at the effect that falling in love had on oxytocin. The researchers examined the plasma oxytocin levels of 120 new lovers (60 couples) three months after the initiation of their romantic relationships and compared the levels to 43 unattached singles. The study found that the couples had higher oxytocin levels than singles.
Then, the couples who stayed together were retested to see what effect (if any) it had on oxytocin. They found that the oxytocin levels of the couples who stayed together remained elevated during the first six months of the relationship.170 Those results were not very surprising; however, Ruth Feldman, one of the researchers in the study, did find something extraordinary. Not only were the oxytocin levels highest in new lovers, she noted that “the increase in oxytocin during the period of falling in love was the highest that we’ve ever found.” 171 It was so high, in fact, that new lovers had almost double the normal levels of oxytocin, even compared to pregnant women, whom you would expect to have the highest.
Even more significant than the dramatically high levels was the effect it had on couples. When couples were asked to share positive experiences, Feldman found that high-oxytocin couples were more attuned to each other than low-oxytocin couples. The high-oxytocin couples laughed together, frequently touched each other, and even finished each other’s sentences. Feldman believes that these behaviors are linked with oxytocin in a type of positive feedback loop. Positive feedback loops are self-amplifying. As Feldman explains, “Oxytocin can elicit loving behaviors, but giving and receiving these behaviors also promotes the release of oxytocin and leads to more of these behaviors.” 172 That’s why the levels can rise so astronomically. When a couple smooches, caresses, and coos, they ooze oxytocin, which causes them to kiss, cuddle, and schmooze even more. This then leads to both partners becoming more loving and understanding and to feeling more loved and understood.
The most important finding of the study has to be the information regarding longevity and oxytocin levels. They discovered that couples with the highest levels were the ones who stayed together the longest.173 In other words, the more oxytocin the couple had, the stronger their love-bonding abilities became.
If you recall, testosterone blocks the effects of oxytocin for men. Now, that all changes. When a man falls in love, his testosterone decreases, making him more vulnerable to the effects of oxytocin. That once-invincible man of steel is now morphing into a big, soft teddy bear who wants to snuggle with only you. That’s right, ladies. Lucky for you, Mother Nature has turned him into a cuddle bunny—make that a monogamous cuddle bunny.
OXYTOCIN IS PROTECTIVE
Oxytocin appears to also have a protective effect that prevents infidelity. Dr. René Hurlemann, from the University of Bonn in Germany, conducted a study to test oxytocin’s effects on a man’s faithfulness. She stated, “Because oxytocin is known to increase trust in people, we expected men under the influence of the hormone to allow the female experimenter to come even closer.” To test this theory, Hurlemann asked fifty-seven men, some in relationships and some single, to receive a dose of oxytocin nasal spray. What Hurlemann found surprised her. “The direct opposite happened,” she said. When men in committed, monogamous relationships were given a dose of oxytocin nasal spray, they kept a larger physical distance—about four to six inches—from attractive women they didn’t know compared to men who received a placebo. The oxytocin didn’t have any effect on the distance the single men kept between themselves and the attractive women. From her results, Hurlemann has come to believe that oxytocin helps to keep men faithful. She credits high levels of oxytocin, like those experienced when a man falls in love, with helping him to stay loyal, by prompting him to steer clear of attractive women.174
What’s even more amazing is what Dirk Scheele of Bonn University Medical Center found. He discovered that, in a sense, oxytocin spellbinds the man into thinking that his woman is the most beautiful in all the land. To test this, Scheele gave a dose of oxytocin to men and conducted brain scans while they viewed pictures of either their partners or other women. He then compared the brain scans to a questionnaire about the perceived attractiveness of each photo’s subject. Scheele states, “When the men received oxytocin instead of the placebo, their reward system in the brain when viewing the partner was very active, and they perceived them as more attractive than the other women.” 175 That’s right, ladies; no need to worry about your hair or makeup. When your lover has a heaping gob of oxytocin, you’re guaranteed to be the fairest of them all.
Oxytocin also has an effect on women. When a woman falls in love, the increase in oxytocin makes her more loving, trusting, and less anxious. It helps her to deal with stress better, improves her memory, and gives her a generally positive mood.176
HER TESTOSTERONE
In a strange twist, as his testosterone is tumbling downhill, hers is sprinting up.177 While a man is becoming more passive, a woman is becoming more aggressive—sexually aggressive, that is. In women, testosterone increases cause her to become more sexually active. So, as the other boys are talking about heading out for the evening, the newly committed man knows he needs to get home because he left something turned on.
During this time of fresh commitment, most couples can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. In other words, they don’t call it “making love” for nothing. But although sexual activity is at an all-time high, there is something more subtle going on here. As his testosterone level is going down and hers is going up, in a way, the man is becoming more like the woman and the woman is becoming more like the man. As Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa in Italy suggests, falling in love temporarily eliminates some of the differences between the sexes, and softens some male features.178
When this happens to you, it can make you feel like the lines that separate you and your romantic partner are blurred. You begin to feel more similar, maybe even like one unit. You can feel a connection and kinship that you have never experienced with anyone else. It can feel like you both know and understand each other so well. Those little differences are temporarily suppressed. You can feel so similar that you know what they’ll say before they say it.
It’s as if you fall under the grand and wondrous illusion that you and your beloved are one, that you completely understand each other, and that you and this amazing person share the same hopes and dreams. You’re convinced that this is the one person who truly appreciates you and wants you to be happy. This may be what Aristotle meant when he said, “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”
SEROTONIN
We’ve learned about the importance of ramping up dopamine levels in the dating phase, but it turns out that high, sustained levels of dopamine cause another important shift when you fall in love. Noted British neurobiologist Semir Zeki has linked the increase in dopamine experienced in the dating phase to a subsequent decrease in serotonin when you fall in love.179 Serotonin, sometimes called the hormone of happiness, plummets during this phase.
Now this might sound alarming. Your hormone of bliss is slipping away. But don’t worry; you’ve got plenty of bliss from other sources (which we’ll talk about in a minute). Right now, the drop in serotonin is not about happiness but has a different effect.
When you fall in love, your serotonin level can actually drop to the same level as that of someone suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a condition characterized by two main features: obsessive or interfering thoughts and compulsive or impulsive urges. A person with OCD can’t stop thinking about a particular object or problem, and he or she feels as if something must be done to relieve their looping thoughts.
The difference between more normal behavior and OCD is that with OCD, an individual will end up performing a ritual or behavior over and over again, to the point that it interferes with his or her normal life. It’s this trait that OCD shares with new relationships. Early on, couples report having interrupting thoughts about each other. A man might say, “She’s all I ever think about,” while a woman may announce, “I just can’t stop thinking about him.”
As forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, explains, “Lovers think obsessively about the beloved; they cannot get these intrusive thoughts out of their minds.” This behavior can be so intense that it can sometimes resemble a pathological condition. In fact, Meloy believes that this is a “trait they most likely share with stalkers.”180
When you fall in love, those intrusive images and internal commentaries can disrupt your ability to concentrate, to the point of interfering with your daily functions. They’re supposed to. As Zeki explains, “Love, after all, is a kind of obsession and in its early stages commonly immobilizes thought and channels it in the direction of a single individual.” 181
When members of a falling-in-love couple are apart, intrusive thoughts swoop in, raising anxiety levels. To relieve the distress this causes, one person is virtually forced to search out the other. This may be the main reason why Mother Nature lowers your serotonin level, so that you two will spend as much time together as possible. And if you happen to be apart, your reduced serotonin level will make this separation so uncomfortable that you’ll do just about anything to get back together. But there may be one more reason why your serotonin level crashes: sex.
High levels of serotonin are associated with feelings of happiness and being satiated, which causes a loss of sexual interest because it reduces your sexual appetite.182 It’s not that you don’t want sex when serotonin levels are high; it’s just that you’re not interested right now. It’s rather like passing a buffet shortly after you’ve eaten. It’s not that the food isn’t appetizing or doesn’t smell good; it’s just that you’re not hungry at the moment.
But when your serotonin levels drop, you can feel famished. Now when you walk by the buffet, you start salivating, like Pavlov’s dog. You want to run in and eat as much as you can. You just want to gorge on food or, in the case of falling in love, you want to gorge on sex.
Now, if you’re thinking, See, it really is all about sex, allow me to introduce you to the next neurotransmitter—cortisol.
CORTISOL
Timothy Loving at the University of Texas in Austin found that the adrenal glands release cortisol (stress hormone) while falling in love. He believes this effect is more pronounced in women. Loving theorizes that the more a woman thinks about or focuses on her relationship, the higher her cortisol levels.
To test his theory, Loving conducted a study on twenty-nine women who had recently fallen “madly, deeply in love,” with a relationship duration of less than a year. Salivary cortisol levels were measured as each individual participated in a guided imagery exercise in which she was instructed to either focus on the face of her partner or the face of a friend. The results showed that cortisol levels rose higher when women focused on the faces of their partners rather than on friends’ faces. However, when Loving looked at all the variables, he found some significant differences. He discovered that women in the shortest relationships had the highest baseline cortisol levels, relative to women in longer relationships. In other words, when a woman falls in love, her cortisol levels skyrocket but then begin to slowly decrease as the relationship continues.183
Loving focused on women in his study “because of the relatively profound role one-on-one relationships play in women’s lives relative to men.” 184 He believes that women are more vulnerable to cortisol but stops short at suggesting why, biologically, this might be true.
Contrary to Loving’s belief, another study found that men are just as vulnerable. And, not only that, women may not be as vulnerable as first believed. Fluctuating hormones of premenopausal women and birth control chemicals can have major influences. In a German study, researcher Clemens Kirschbaum found that men and women show significant differences in cortisol stress responses. He found that gender, the menstrual cycle phase, and the use of oral contraceptives exert important effects on stress in healthy individuals. Salivary cortisol levels were highest in response to stress in women in the luteal phase of her menstrual cycle. That’s the phase right after ovulation, up to and including the premenstrual phase. The second highest salivary cortisol levels were found in men, followed by women in the follicular phase of menstruation and preovulation. Women taking oral contraceptives were the least responsive.185 This finding supports the biological theory that “falling in love” causes a couple to come together at the perfect time to produce a child. The stress response was highest in the fertile women, followed by the men. It was lower in the women who were less likely to conceive and lowest in the women taking medication to prevent pregnancy.
But before you scream “Ah ha, it is all about reproduction!” allow me to remind you that although sexual attraction is enhanced by fear-inducing norepinephrine, it’s dowsed by cortisol. The stress hormone cortisol can squelch a budding sexual attraction faster than a teenage girl’s daddy with a shotgun.
Therefore, the questions that arise are: Why does the cortisol level surge? Why are two people walking around with earth-shattering stress levels when they should be plucking flowers and staring into each other’s eyes? Why would Mother Nature make you edgy and anxious instead of serene? This would seem to be characteristic of war, not love.
The reason Mother Nature can amp up levels of our stress hormones is because she has disconnected our stress system. Remember the vacationing amygdala? In this phase of love, you have a strange combination of high anxiety with a quiet amygdala, therefore the stress doesn’t cause you to run away but propels you toward your beloved.
The stress causes you to lose your appetite and sleep. You should be running away from the situation, looking for relief, but the part of your brain that tells you to go is still on that beach sipping piña coladas. This causes the four Fs of your fight-or-flight response to be limited. Remember the four Fs? Fight, flight, feed, or . . . be friendly. Yeah, that’s it. In this situation you’re not running away, you don’t want to fight, you can’t eat . . . so you’re left with one F: fun.
All you want to do is be with the other person, mostly in new and wondrous positions. One day apart (or out of bed) can feel like an eternity. You can experience such separation anxiety that risking your life and years of freedom by breaking out of jail for just a few minutes with your beloved can seem like a reasonable decision.
The only way you can feel some relief from all this crazy anxiety is through sex. Okay, so it may be a little bit about sex. As the old adage goes, “Love creates the tension; sex relieves it.” And the next neurotransmitter answers the question of how.
ENDORPHINS
While a newly fallen-in-love couple is whiling away the hours, delighting in passionate lovemaking, their bodies are producing a type of love drug. During those deliciously inspiring moments of orgasm, your body releases endorphins. Endorphins are nature’s “pain relievers.” They are opioid-like substances that reduce any physical pain while producing that dreamy enraptured sensation of love.
When you fall in love, your body’s release of endorphins makes you feel elated. As Dr. Sean Mackey, chief of the Division of Pain Management at Stanford University School of Medicine says, “When people are in the passionate, all-consuming phase of love, there are significant alterations in their mood that are impacting their experience of pain. Love-induced analgesia may block pain—similar to how opioid analgesics work.”186 With the removal of any pain or fatigue, you feel young, fresh, happy, and strong.
In a somewhat cruel study, scientists inflicted pain on participants to study the effect that love had on an individual’s pain level. All participants were still in the first nine months of their relationships (probably to ensure they were still in the insanity phase, because who else would agree to this?). The individuals were asked to look at pictures of either their romantic partners or acquaintances, while their hands were immersed in water at various temperatures, starting at room temperature and moving on to a bowl of painfully hot, near-boiling water. The results showed that viewing a romantic partner compared to an acquaintance significantly reduced the pain that was felt.187 Ah, this is the soothing balm of love.
As you have sex, you release more endorphins, which cause you to feel great. At the same time, you’re releasing sex hormones that cause you to want more sex,188 which causes you to release more endorphins and more sex hormones, which causes you to feel good and want more sex, and around and around you go. This cycle becomes self-amplifying. You start out having sex in the bed, then in the shower, then you go out to the kitchen to eat breakfast and the next thing you know, you’re having sex on the kitchen table. Next, you’re having sex on the kitchen floor. You go for a drive and can’t wait to get home. Next thing you know, you pull over and have sex in the car. No surface or area is beyond consideration. Just ask Michael Suh and Nicole Germack, a Philadelphia couple that was arrested after being caught having sex on the roof of their neighborhood Chipotle restaurant.189 I guess they couldn’t stop long enough for lunch.
As you’re having sex, your system is being flooded with super feel-good, morphine-like chemicals. However, in love, when your cortisol is high, endorphins act differently. They are released in the limbic system, which reduces not just physical pain but also emotional anxiety. Now, not only does the opiate cause any pain to decrease, it also causes the feeling of intense euphoria.190 It can make you feel like a seven-year-old who’s walking into Disney World for the first time. Everything feels exciting and magical.
Your body is at ease, as if you just had a weeklong spa vacation where you were pampered and oiled, your feet massaged, and your body soaked in a warm Jacuzzi bath filled with lavender and jasmine petals. There is a feeling of peace and a serene sense of well-being. You have found your Nirvana, as your brain is washed with a quietly joyful awareness that all is right and perfect in the world.
You now know with the utmost certainty that as long as this enchanted creature is in your life, it will always be wonderful and sweet. This hypnotic intoxication is what people are referring to when they talk about wanting love—a glorious, grounded, and expansive tranquillity. But although you feel captivated, everything is not rosy and tranquil in your brain, as we will see.
MENTAL MIRACLE-GRO
Falling in love also releases a chemical that has been described as a type of fertilizer or Miracle-Gro for your brain. Part of that sprawling euphoria you experience when you fall in love is due to the expansion of your brain. You release at least two known neurological growth chemicals: nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF). These substances increase and enhance your brain’s capacities.
You feel inspired with new ideas and bursts of creative energy. The secretion of these growth factors may be one of the reasons some artists look for a muse. Painters like Picasso would often look for inspiration by finding a young woman to “fall in love” with. This act would cause of surge of growth factors that could revitalize his creativity.
Enzo Emanuele at the University of Pavia in Italy evaluated NGF levels of fifty-eight individuals who had recently fallen in love. The levels were compared to others who were in long-term relationships or who were single. He found that individuals who had recently fallen in love, and who were in relationships with durations of less than six months, had significantly higher NGFs than single people and long-term lovers.191 Also, it appears that the concentration of NGF correlates with the intensity of romantic feelings. He found it was highest in those couples who said they were “truly, deeply and madly in love.” 192 That is to say, the stronger the feeling of love, the greater the nerve growth gush.
Nerve growth factor causes the length of neurons to grow. It’s also critical to the survival of existing neurons. Without it, neurons would experience preprogrammed death. In other words, falling in love seems to increase connectivity in your brain and keeps your brain young by allowing more neurons to stay alive. But even with all that, it’s not the only brain growth happening here. You still have BDNF, which has a little different effect
Researchers in Cambridge found that BDNF helps women get closer to their beloved by reducing social anxiety and fear of strangers. BDNF, which is induced by estrogen, significantly reduces avoidance behaviors in women.193 In addition, BDNF plays a role in promoting feelings of well-being when the partner is around.194
Researchers at Cambridge University have also explored how BDNF is produced when you fall in love. They discovered that it plays a role in synaptic plasticity. That is to say, it helps your neurons talk to one another. It fosters new connections, which is important for learning and memory. It also helps encourage the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses. In other words, it takes your brain from a one-to-one message type of system and converts it to a sort of chat room. It creates more connections, which allows different parts of your brain to communicate with one another. This permits you to tap into new and underutilized regions of your neocortex. You can have new thoughts and inventive ideas.
However, this growth may not be as sweet and innocently delightful as it first appears. There is something almost sinister going on here. In a way, Mother Nature is acting like a drug pusher, helping you to get addicted to love. BDNF, that great brain-enhancing chemical, has also been found to induce drug dependency. Research out of the University of Toronto shows that BDNF appears to make rodents more dependent on opioids.195 Yes, that’s opiates, like those endorphins Mother Nature has been so freely plying you with. In other words, Mother Nature, the master of molecular mixology, appears to be combining endorphins and BDNF in your brain to create an addictive love potion to get a couple hooked on endorphins and, by extension, hooked on each other.
While writing this chapter, I received an e-mail from a former client. Periodically, I receive exciting updates, and this was no exception. Kim wrote to tell me she was starting a thrilling new career in illustration. It was something she had always wanted to do but in the past was not brave enough to pursue. Since starting her relationship with Bo last year, she found the courage to take the risk. Kim’s experience is not unusual.
Your Judge not only judges other people, it judges you. While it was on vacation, all of its negative opinions about you were also sequestered. Psychologists Arthur Aron, Elaine Aron (both at the State University of New York at Stony Brook), and Meg Paris (California Graduate School of Family Psychology) discovered that the dramatic, transformative experience of falling in love reshapes your self-concept. Love expands your self-efficacy, or your belief in your own ability to be effective and reach your goals. They also believe that love increases your self-esteem and your overall judgment of your self-worth.196
The opinion of that third-grade teacher who said you weren’t that bright is gone. The voice of your art teacher who said you lacked imagination has been squashed. Those nagging self-doubts vanish. The harsh voice that says you’re “not good enough” is gagged. Like the Bionic Woman, you feel better than you were before—smarter, stronger, and faster. Along with deactivated brain regions, those added endorphins give you a sense of power and control.197 You have been rebuilt.
All of this leads to self-expansion. Now, no longer being held back by self-doubts, you’re open to change and trying new things. Love is not the only risk you’re willing to take. Now that you’re in a loving relationship, you feel safe to explore new avenues, try new hobbies, and explore new careers. The effect can be particularly profound for individuals suffering from low self-esteem. They will be able to tap into new resources because those nerve factors are causing love to grow and expand their brains.
HERE’S WHAT’S GOING ON
By now you probably agree with my assertion that falling in love is a type of splendid insanity—a welcomed madness, but a madness nevertheless. But why does this happen? Is there a reason for all of this neurological chaos? What’s really going on here? Why are women becoming more like men and men more like women? Why are we stuck on each other while displaying neurotic, obsessive-compulsive anxiety when separated? Why would Mother Nature hijack our brains with intrusive thoughts and turn off the thinking abilities and structures that are critical to our safety and survival? Really, what the hell is Mother Nature thinking?
INSANITY HELPS YOU GET CLOSE
All these factors—the loss of critical judgment, the silencing of your alarm system, high cortisol keeping you close, oxytocin causing you to want to cuddle, OCD-like obsession from the loss of serotonin and the addictive endorphins—come together in a perfectly orchestrated aim: to decrease your resistance to love.
As neurobiologist Zeki notes, “There is a reason for the madness . . . which serves a higher purpose of uniting unlikely pairs.” 198 Think about it: Mother Nature wants us to mix up our chromosomes. In order to promote this, she causes you to be attracted to your opposite. This means that your biologically perfect mate is very different from you, a person with completely different chromosomes, lacking any of your recessive traits. Maybe even someone from the other side of the world.
Barring any family and societal pressure pushing you toward a specific type of individual, you would most likely pick someone who looks and sounds very different from yourself. Psychiatrist Donatella Marazziti explains it well: “The real paradox [is that] humans are attracted to, courted by and breed with genetically unrelated individuals whom they would otherwise instinctively avoid.” 199
This becomes evident when you take a closer look at the effects of the neurotransmitters that are released. Cortisol, oxytocin, and NGF are all known to help overcome neophobia, or the fear of new situations and new people,200 while BDNF is believed to play a role in decreasing avoidance and fear of unfamiliar people in women. In other words, it lowers a woman’s apprehension and allows her to get closer to her partner. All these chemicals doing similar things may seem a bit like overkill, but Mother Nature wants you to love and be loved. And to be certain that her wishes are carried out, she orchestrates a tsunami of neurochemical bravado that should successfully snuff out any niggling uncertainty you’re feeling about your partner.
For a brief moment, it can almost feel as if you’re infinite. That feeling of boundless harmony happens when your defenses and resistance are temporarily suspended. This amazing synergy not only makes you feel as if you’re one with your partner, you adopt a sense that you’re directly connected to the world—to the plants, the animals, and maybe even to God.
But there has to be more than just genetic diversity at play here. Other animals don’t fall in love yet still manage diversity. If it’s simply about genetic diversity, that could be accomplished with an instinct. Therefore, there must be more going on.