The Chemisty of Love

Northwestern Medicine

Norepinephrine

Your heart racing when around the special person is caused by the chemical norepinephrine which stimulates muscle contractions, especially cardiac muscles. It’s responsible for the racing heart, the breathlessness, the energizing high, and the feeling one can’t eat or sleep. Your body is in reality in fight or flight mode.

Dopamine

Dopamine stimulates the pleasure center creating motivation reward and goal-directed behavior that drives you to pursue that special person. The object of your affection seems special and unique. And if you can’t be with the one you love, dopamine inspires fantasies of you being with the one you love!

Serotonin

While norepinephrine and dopamine are flooding your brain with high energy “feelings of love,” serotonin levels are decreasing. This chemical is a mood stabilizer and promotes healthy sleep, eating and digestion. Studies show as these levels decrease obsessive/compulsive behaviors increase. And, so, with a lowering of serotonin levels, you can’t sleep, you can’t think of anything other than that person, you’re obsessed and your inside are all a flutter. You’re in love!

These intense chemical changes—romantic feelings—seem to have a half-life of six months. That means if your feeling of love is a ten in the beginning, it will drop to a five in just half a year. In one year, down to a three. Which explains why junior and senior high school romances last less than a semester.

The ancient Greeks had several words for love. This initial “chemistry” was called eros. However, if the love were to develop into a deep, meaningful relationship, the Greeks would label it phileo or a strong friendship. Finally, a lifelong commitment was described as agape which was a willful choice “to have and to hold from this day forward, until death do we part.”

From the book Recovering Love, copyright © 2020 Faith A. Watkins.

The heart of the matter
is what matters the most.
It’s the essence of what e’er it is.
When you give God your heart,
you are giving Him you.
You are basically saying you’re His!

Yes, the heart of the matter
(when it comes to your faith)
is surrendering all that you are.
By releasing your grip
(and with no strings attached)
you will find God will take you quite far.

On this Valentine’s Day
why not give God your heart
as a way of confessing your love?
When you hold nothing back
and let Him take control,
you’ll discover what He’s thinking of.