Love and romance: its phases and the body chemical changes in it!

 Love term is so often used in daily life. You watch it on digital technology and also the internet. Every human being has experienced it at some time in their lives. But what exactly is love? What happens in the body when it occurs?

Love and its meaning: Is it a sickness?

Love is a feeling and it is a positive feeling. It is something that is talked about in humans as well as in animals. It can be of different kinds and can be for another human being, an animal, an insect, or even an inanimate object or an abstract thing as well. It makes a person happy and makes him or her smile. But often when we say love it is meant to the feelings between two people in a romantic or sexual sense. Many philosophers and authors have dubbed love as sickness and an ailment. It is some sort of an addiction that makes an individual go high just like on drugs.

Read here on a daughter's tribute to her loving father! 

Romance and love [Source: Your Tango]

Hence when a person is in love it is called lovesickness. Comedian George Burns has compared love to a backache. He states:

“It doesn’t show up on X-rays, but you know it’s there.”

Love and the science behind it

Love does not usually cause physical symptoms unless a person stops eating and drinking due to it. Usually, it is an emotional ailment. Richard Schwartz from the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and also a consultant to McLean and Massachusetts General (MGH) hospitals states that love does increase the blood cortisol levels of the person who is in love. Cortisol is a stress hormone that is immunosuppressive.

Additionally, levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the body also rise and this stimulates the pleasure centers in the brain. Serotonin level also increases and this leads to obsession and a bit of stupefaction. Like the Moon, love also has different phases.

Love and body chemicals [Source: Pinterest]

But Richard confesses:

“It’s fairly complex, and we only know a little about it,”

The phases of love

Studies have shown that as the first year period of love comes to an end, the serotonin levels also drop. Hence the obsession is moderated. Later, the hormone oxytocin starts appearing and increases gradually leading to a level of maturity. Love now gets calmer and mature. Immune function improves and health benefits take place in the couple. Their life span increases and there are fewer strokes and heart attacks in the married couples, studies say. They are also less depressed and are able to survive cancers and major surgery better than those who are not in love.

Richard studies love in the lab and also with patient counseling. But he admits:

“I think we know a lot more scientifically about love and the brain than we did a couple of decades ago, but I don’t think it tells us very much that we didn’t already know about love. It’s kind of interesting, it’s kind of fun [to study]. But do we think that makes us better at love, or helping people with love? Probably not much.”

He and his wife Jacqueline Olds counsel patients with the backup of the chemical date done in the lab. And the clients listen better to it. They feel that love changes in a couple from passionate to a companionate one. This is both a good thing but also a sad bit. Children serve as stressors for this relationship but one needs to find ways to maintain and rekindle the romance in a relationship to keep it going.