What Happens in the Brain When You Love Someone?

When you love someone, it’s a feeling that can make your heart race and your palms sweat. It can be hard to describe and often feels like a combination of excitement, attraction, happiness, affection and even security and trust. It’s a feeling that can motivate you to sacrifice for the person you love and even to say sorry when it’s not your fault. It’s a feeling that has inspired philosophers, poets, and musicians to write about its mystery. And thanks to advances in brain imaging technology, scientists are now able to see more clearly what is happening in the brain when people experience these feelings.

They’re showing us that a number of different emotions are involved in love, including lust, attachment, and compassion. This new understanding of love can help us understand how and why people fall in and out of relationships. It can also help us create better marriages, friendships and business partnerships.

For example, if you’re a man and you fall in love with a woman, it’s likely that the hormones and neurotransmitters that cause you to feel excited and attracted to her are the same ones that can also create a sense of security and comfort when you spend time together. These chemicals can cause you to want to spend more time with her and even plan a future with her. This is what’s happening when you’re in the early stages of romantic love and it may explain why you feel giddy and euphoric around your crush or best friend.

As the relationship continues, there is a drop in these chemicals. Then the brain’s levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, which are involved in the fight or flight response, are replaced by oxytocin, which is responsible for the bonding hormone that makes you feel warm and cuddly when you’re with the person you’re falling in love with. This is when you begin to invest in the relationship and even consider long-term plans.

Finally, the brain’s levels of serotonin, which is associated with mood and positive thoughts, drop as well. As this happens, you might start to think of your partner as “yours” and may start to feel less needy or anxious. You might also start to look at your friends or colleagues with more appreciation and admiration.

This kind of love can also motivate you to want to see the person you’re in love with succeed, and to be good. This is the kind of love that can be seen in the commitment of parents to their children and the loyalty of close friends. It’s the kind of love that you might feel when you support someone as they try to break destructive patterns of behavior.

It’s not a simple question to answer, and the scientific evidence shows that what we experience when we love is more complicated than simply the sum of the feelings associated with lust, attraction, attachment, compassion and security. But it’s still a wonderful thing to celebrate and cherish, especially when we take the time to encompass all of these aspects of love in our lives.