When you are in love, a cocktail of hormones is released. Everything happens in your body, especially in your brain. Stallaart: “A new love is always exciting. You don’t know how things will turn out, so there are a lot of uncertainties involved. This causes your subconscious to initially associate it with fear. Your body goes into optimal survival mode and produces the stress hormone adrenaline. Your heart beats faster and your blood is pumped out of your stomach. This is also where the well-known ‘butterflies in the belly’ come from.”
Endorphin a dopamine
In addition to adrenaline, the substances endorphins and dopamine are also released. These provide the euphoric feeling that comes with being in love. Endorphins have the property of suppressing pain and stress. These negative emotions give way to happiness. Dopamine is a substance that is part of the reward system in our body. It makes us feel satisfied faster.
Stallaart: “The euphoric and blissful feeling makes you look at your (potential) partner through rose-colored glasses. The positive aspects are approached busy, while the negative things are brushed aside. You may notice his or her lesser sides, but they are not considered important at that time. Infatuation makes you put someone on a pedestal. A lot has to be done to get that person off.”
Obsessive decisions
Love not only changes your view of the world, but also your behavior. “There are a lot of positive changes taking place in your brain, but it also shuts down certain areas. For example, parts of the prefrontal cortex are deactivated. These are involved in complex thinking. During the infatuated phase it will therefore be less easy to think carefully and put things into perspective. That is why you often see that people make impulsive and obsessive decisions more quickly when they are in love. For them, at that moment everything revolves around that one person,” says Stallaart.
“In addition to the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala is also deactivated. This is the part of your brain involved in regulating fear. It makes it easier for you to step out of your comfort zone. In addition, the hypothalamus is overactive. This area ensures that feelings of lust are aroused. It is very special how nature has arranged everything, because this subconsciously pushes our body to produce offspring.”
Broken thinking
But do you still have some control over your own decisions and emotions? “When you are young, I can imagine that you are very overwhelmed by all these emotions. However, it does not mean that you have no control over this at all. Love makes blind, but not completely blind. Infatuation makes your brain work overtime, but if you rationalize everything yourself, you can also stop these substances and processes. Nowadays you see for yourself that people do this subconsciously too quickly. How often do you hear a friend shout: ‘Everything is right, but I don’t feel it and I don’t understand why!?’ They are too busy with it in their heads, so that they actually think it broken. In order for nature to do its work, we need to open our brains. Being in love may sound intense now, but it’s actually something magical.”
Not in love anymore
Exactly how long this magical phase lasts varies from person to person. Stallaart: “Little research has been done, but most say that extreme infatuation lasts for about three to eighteen months. These feelings are strongest in the first six months and last an average of one to two years. However, this does not mean that it will disappear completely afterwards. There are studies measuring the brain activity of partners, and they show that certain areas still light up after longer periods of time.”