Scientists are adamant: our feelings and the logic of love development are tightly connected with biochemical processes in our bodies. Even if we wanted this amazing passionate feeling to last forever, our body wouldn’t be able to cope with it.
We found out why the feeling of falling in love always fades away and how we can save our relationship when the hormonal cocktail stops working.
4. We experience euphoria when we fall in love.
Scientists think that the euphoria that is triggered by passion, has a lot in common with the feeling that addicts experience after taking another dose of their chosen drug. This is a conclusion made by neuroscientists Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki from University College London.
This effect appears because the brain and adrenal glands produce the hormone noradrenaline. This same hormone is produced after cocaine or heroin intake. A person that is in love feels the need to meet their partner more and more because they want to experience that high.
3. When we fall in love, there is a hormonal cocktail in our body.
When we fall in love, several chemical processes in our brain occur that make us disregard our partner’s drawbacks. We also feel that our life is great only with our beloved and we depend on them emotionally. Hormones play a really important role here.
Oxytocin is responsible for emotional attachment and contributes to the deep emotional connection between partners. If the hypothalamus produces enough oxytocin, your stress levels decrease and the desire becomes even more intense.
Vasopressin is responsible for fidelity, a desire to take care of each other, and like oxytocin, emotional attachment.
Dopamine is the hormone of pleasure. Its production contributes to delightful and pleasant feelings. This hormone makes us feel high and it’s produced in great quantities when we eat or make love.
Serotonin is responsible for our ability to experience pleasure, it cheers us up, and improves the quality of our sexual life.
Cortisol is called the stress hormone and, according to several researchers, its levels are really high at the beginning of each relationship.
Our dependence on the chemistry of love grows stronger because of pheromones. Pheromones are produced by our body’s sweat glands (both men’s and women’s) and affect the receptors of the olfactory system.
This hormonal cocktail causes several physiological reactions like excessive sweating, rapid heartbeat, pupil dilation, sleep disorders, and loss of appetite.
2. Why can’t the feeling of falling in love last forever?
Biological rules are strict: our amorousness is just a fleeting chemical process that lasts for a maximum of 3 years.
During evolution, human beings needed it to survive. It would have been hard for our ancestors to take care of children, find food, and protect themselves if they were all alone. The feeling of falling in love helped couples stay together for the sake of their child’s survival. And as the child grew up, this feeling faded away.
In less than 3 years, nerve endings become almost insensitive to the production of these hormones. Also, the hormones themselves are produced in a much lower concentration. The brain function becomes stable, it starts working regularly, and hormones stop stimulating the couple’s emotional attachment.
1. Are all of our relationships doomed?
The period of falling in love is stressful for our body. A quiet rhythm is actually more effective for us. True love probably begins when the hormonal cocktail stops working.
Scientists have found that the attachment feeling that makes us live with our partner for a long period of time is related to oxytocin and vasopressin. The level of oxytocin rises when people hug, have sex, kiss, or just chat.
So here’s the conclusion: touches and tenderness are the best way to maintain long-term relationships. And don’t forget to keep up the ability to listen, express your gratitude, come to compromises, overcome conflicts, and move forward together.
