Love Happens and Unhappens:the Hows and Whys

Its that slow sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. Its that feeling which tells you that you have lost control and willingly so. Its a feeling that pains and paralyses. Its a feeling that is so pure that you can feel its purity. Its a feeling that everyone experiences and yet makes you feel special. But how does love perform in your brain. What happens-biologically that makes you fall in love also called as the attraction stage, lust for the one you love also called as the attachment stage and finally live with that special someone forever.

According to Helen Fisher, a well-known love researcher and an anthropologist at Rutgers University, in the attraction stage there is a biological drive to focus on one person. During this stage there are high levels of dopamine in the brain which in turn is associated with norepinephrine, which heightens attention, short-term memory, hyperactivity, sleeplessness and goal-oriented behavior. Anyone in this stage of love focuses on the partner more than anyone else.

In the next stage when you are so much in love that you start having sex regularly, your body releases oxytocin. This is creates an emotional bond. The more the sex, the greater the bond. Endorphins act as painkillers in the body and they too are released causing a general feeling of well being.

Finally, we come to the last stage of every relationship. Till you are in love and attached to your loved one everything is hunky dory. But over a longer period of time, you start seeing your partner with different eyes. You start noticing all those deficiencies that you had never seen till now. This is the time when most relationships break down.

But in some, it happens that the initial bonding is so strong that they sail through this tempest. This is when the hormones start secreting again. The feelings of love return and the bond gets stronger than ever.