Science is still striving to discover what are the reasons that lead us to fall in love of one person or another. Nothing is known about what mechanisms click in our brain to understand that “that” is the relationship that will mark our life.
At the moment, science amuses itself by analyzing how relationships evolve through hormones that segregate when we fall in love. Hormones kicking in from the exact moment we fell in love.
An act, by the way, that can last less than a second.
Our brain then activates twelve areas They have a chemical reaction in the form of adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin. Our heart rate accelerates, our stomach shrinks, butterflies fly… the body starts because of feelings and its reaction evolves as they evolve.
The (scientific) stages of love
Everything in this life has a cycle. Life itself has it and so does love. Science marks the phases of love based on what our brain secretes.
The doctor Helen Fisher, American anthropologist and biologist, researcher of human behavior at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has been able to analyze and define How does love work on a chemical level?
It distinguishes specifically three stages different:
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A first stage after that half second of crush, which we could define as sexual attraction, and that activates the drive circuit. The autonomous force that promotes an initial drive that has as its sole objective satisfy erotic desire.
This takes place in the hypothalamus. There is produced a testosterone regulation In addition to a release of substances, by our brain, in which they are involved, in addition to sexual, adrenaline and norepinephrine.
The heart increases its rhythm, fats and sugars capable of increasing muscle capacity are released and blood pressure rises, producing an increase in the number of red blood cells. And all in a matter of seconds.
This phase ends up revealing in the lover feelings of well-being, optimism and illusion, that would end up, with the passage of time, in a second phase known as falling in love.
Although there are neural areas that come into action both in the first and in the second phase, they don’t do it the same way since, according to Dr. Helen Fisher, “Infatuation focuses on a single person, while lust can be dispersed in several.”
This moment goes far beyond of the full need to satisfy sexual desire.
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In that second moment of love, which lasts between 18 months and up to four years, the human being and his organism focus on achieve a “passionate match” that ends up leading to, if it comes to fruition, in a joint stabilization of the couple.
This process starts in the cerebral cortex and passes through neurons to end up in the endocrine system where intense physiological responses are produced. About the butterflies.
Our brain is releasing phenylethylamine, norepinephrine, serotonin and pheromones during the process.
The investigation carried out by Dr. Fisher has been able to demonstrate how “when images of the loved one have been presented in that romantic stage, the magnetic resonance carried out demonstrates How are those receptors that release dopamine put into operation? in large quantities, activating various regions of your brain.”
As we fall in love, the brain is flooded with phenylethylamine, we begin to secrete dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin that end up causing, according to the doctor, “a love binge”.
Science makes a difference here with what we have always thought about the importance of the heart in falling in love: That romantic love belongs to the brain.
Is romantic love forever?
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In the third phase of the relationship, in which experts define as “romantic love”, Human beings face the dilemma of considering that love is dying or appeal for the sentimental maturity and establish new emotional routes.
He reason why we stand Faced with the need to choose between one or the other, the evolution of falling in love and the entry into this third phase it also has a scientific basis.
Our body can no longer assume the absorption of huge amounts of dopamine and norepinephrine, that provoke the emotions of the first phases, and with it the intensity of our biochemical reactions decays.
Our euphoria is calmed, the obsession to be close and even that anxiety which is generated in phase two, and is replaced by other reactions such as comfort, adaptation and security, losing weight irrationality and that initial blindness with which we act.
Relationships and love are dynamic, and with them their links, so that evolution it modifies the neural pathways of our brain and even creates new ones. But it is not immediate. She must be given a time to execute it. And it is at that moment when the dilemma forces us to choose.
Those new connections that are established in our brain, even if they are softer, they are deeper and beneficial to our health.
brain structures of the reward system and the pleasure center of satiety They are the ones in charge of managing this stage, while regulating themselves through oxytocin.
This biochemical substance is defined by many as the molecule of love since it is the one that has the most strength in this attack of mature love. They also play an important role here. endorphins and vasopressin.
A phase that can come starting two years into the relationship and ending up lasting a lifetime.
Science ends up refuting, in this case, literature contravening that of “Love lasts three years.” For Dr. Fisher, specifically, “love lasts four years.” But she refers to the previous phase.