Love and belonging are core, basic human needs. Love inspires and motivates many of our actions. Think about all the songs, movies, books and art about love or the absence of it. How about the emotionally driven conflicts over love? It is universal while also being deeply personal, whether it is the love you have for romantic partners, family, friends, pets or even activities you are passionate about. Love can make us feel exuberated, connected and accepted, while a lack of it can make us feel lonely, isolated and depressed.
But, why? What exactly happens in the brain when we feel love?
What Happens in the Brain When We Fall in Love?
When you experience love, your brain releases feel-good hormones, including dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. These hormones enhance your mood and overall sense of well-being. Dopamine, the “reward hormone,” reinforces the pleasure we feel from love and encourages us to seek more of these feelings.
Oxytocin, the “love hormone,” promotes trust, connections and bonding with others. The brain also releases oxytocin when we exercise and listen to music. It makes sense that physical activity and listening to music can be therapeutic if you are experiencing heartache.
1. A concoction of hormones begins brewing and activates your reward system—or your brain’s reward system lights up.
We often describe the early stages of a romance as intoxicating, characterized by feelings of euphoria and desire. This is because the early stages of romantic love activate our reward system, much like cocaine can. In the early stages of a romance, critical hormones like oxytocin and vasopressin interact with the brain’s reward system, especially dopamine, so that we are “addicted” to our new lover.
2. Your serotonin levels decrease.
Early romantic love is associated with reduced serotonin levels, like levels seen in obsessive compulsive disorder. That may be why we tend to obsess about our new lover and may experience stress and anxiety.
3. You feel like you’re losing your mind.
The early stages of romantic love result in reduced activity in brain regions associated with fear as well as cortical regions related to critical judgment. These changes open us up to the possibility of being vulnerable to someone new and can result in a suspension of critical judgment in which our new lover’s flaws or potential challenges to the relationship are not critically assessed (i.e., the phenomenon of “rose-colored glasses”).
4. You feel like you’ve merged with that person.
Romantic love is associated with reduced activity in brain regions related to Theory of Mind—our ability to mentally take into account another person’s perspective, including their emotions and thoughts—while simultaneously maintaining our own feelings and thoughts and recognizing the distinction between ourselves and the other person. This might correspond to the literary references in which two souls in love become one and there is a merging of two independent selves.
5. You may experience tangible health benefits.
After the heady first six months or so of intoxicating, stressful, all-encompassing romantic love, our serotonin levels normalize and we are able to clearly see our lover’s strengths and weaknesses. We settle into a long-term relationship which is associated with reduced stress, increased bonding, and feelings of security largely mediated by the effects of oxytocin. This may be related to the known health benefits of long-term relationships.
How does romantic love change over time?
The initial phase of falling in love and intense infatuation lasts for several months.
During the next phase, there is increased intimacy, commitment and attachment. This is driven by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin. Oxytocin helps us feel safe and secure after the initial high cortisol and stress of the uncertainty and risk of falling in love. Vasopressin promotes behaviours of vigilance and being territorial and self-protective.
Between oxytocin and vasopressin there is a balance of connecting with others while also protecting the person you are in love with and yourself.
How does longer-term love differ in the brain?
Once the initial excitement of new love has worn off and a couple becomes more committed, the activation areas of the brain also expand, Brown said. In studies among newly-married couples, Brown found parts of the brain’s basal ganglia—the area responsible for motor control—were activated when participants looked at photos of their long-term partner.
“This is an area of the brain heavily involved in promoting attachment, giving humans and other mammals the ability to stick it out even when things aren’t going quite so well,” Brown said.
Even among couples who have been married 20 years or longer, many showed neural activity in dopamine-rich regions associated with reward and motivation, particularly the VTA, in line with those early-stage romantic love studies. In a 2012 study in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, participants showed greater brain activation in the VTA in response to images of their long-term spouse when compared with images of a close friend and a highly familiar acquaintance. Study results also showed common neural activity in several regions often activated in maternal attachment, including the frontal, limbic, and basal ganglia areas.
Longer-term love also boosts activation in more cognitive areas of the brain such as the angular gyrus, the part of the brain associated with complex language functions, and the mirror neuron system, a region that helps you anticipate the actions of a loved one. That’s the reasoning behind couples who finish each other’s sentences or have a way of moving around a small kitchen cooking together without issue, Cacioppo said.
“People in love have this symbiotic, synergistic connection thanks to the mirror neuron system, and that’s why we often say some couples are better together than the sum of their parts,” she said. “Love makes us sharper and more creative thinkers.”
The effect of love on mental health
Love can have a profound effect on mental health. Appropriate, healthy love promotes belonging and purpose, and in turn, can boost mood and decrease anxiety, stress and depression. Conversely, the absence of love or loss of love can have the reverse effect, explaining why breakups with romantic partners and losing loved ones can trigger an intense emotional response.
Neuroscience supports the well-known saying, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Over time, the hormones released in the brain from experiencing love can lead to positive behavioral and emotional changes. These changes include increased empathy, generosity and resilience. The lasting impact of love on the brain can also promote happiness and a desire to spend time with others.
What happens when we break up?
While the physical and mental health benefits of these hormones are significant, “we pay the price of having emotional responses when we lose our companions,” says Carter.
Breaking up can mean losing a steady stream of feel-good hormones like dopamine and oxytocin, and, at the same time, experiencing an increase in stress-related hormones like cortisol and norepinephrine.
“A breakup suddenly deprives us of the neurotransmitters we’ve grown used to,” says Olds. “Just as an addict hates going cold turkey, a bad breakup causes huge distress.”
For some people, this includes even physical discomfort.
“A breakup creates a stress response in the body and brain, and the brain reacts as if there is a physically painful stimulus,” explains Brown. A sudden longing often follows as well—similar to an addict going through withdrawals. “You search for the person who’s no longer there, for the positive feelings you once associated with your beloved,” explains Cacioppo. “This is what heartbreak or unrequited love looks like.”
Kubo says these feelings of loss or longing can manifest as lost appetite, changes in weight, sleep disturbances, anxiety, or depression.
Such feelings can be amplified significantly if one’s partner dies. In extreme cases, this can be deadly for the person in mourning.
“Oxytocin is critical in protecting all tissues, but especially the heart,” says Carter.
When a steady stream of it suddenly stops with the death of a loved one, it can create a cardiovascular response. For many people, this, plus the release of stress hormones that accompany sudden loss can cause blood pressure to spike, one’s heart to race, and difficulty breathing.
Though such symptoms are the worst physical manifestations for most people, individuals with an underlying heart condition, “could be at risk of suffering from a heart attack,” says Larkin. This is where the rare medical condition known as broken heart syndrome factors in.
“One groundbreaking study of grief from the 1960s looked at 4,486 widowers in Britain,” explains Cacioppo. “During the first six-months after they lost their spouses, they had a 40 percent higher risk of dying than a married person their own age.”
Fortunately, the worst outcomes associated with separation from a loved one—either through a breakup or death—lessen over time as we form and strengthen new relationships.
“When social bonds are broken by separation or loss of a partner, the nervous system needs time to re-equilibrate and adjust,” says Carter. “We may literally experience the pain of a lost relationship forever, but as new bonds form, those may help heal the emotional pain associated with loss.”
Self-care can also help with healing. “After the hardest first days or weeks, it is important to do things that you enjoy to reduce your stress hormones and to increase your love hormones,” advises Larkin.
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