Episode 5: What happens to you body when you feel love

When we feel love, our body experiences a range of emotions and chemical reactions. Attraction and love are closely linked, with love being a deep affectionate feeling. Science views love as a combination of chemicals in the brain, such as dopamine, which is released when we do things that make us feel good. Evolutionarily, love is a drive to find and keep preferred mates and to raise children. Falling in love involves intense passion and heightened responses, driven by sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone. As love progresses, there is increased intimacy, commitment, and attachment, influenced by hormones like oxytocin and vasopressin. Oxytocin helps us feel safe and secure, while vasopressin promotes protective behaviors. It's important to find a balance between connection with others and self-protection. So, when you watch a movie, think about how your body reacts to the emotions on screen. Hello, welcome to another episode. In this episode we will be talking about what happens in your body when you feel love. Attraction is the sense of closeness, interest or desire you feel towards someone. Love is difficult to define, but can be described as an interest feeling of deep affection. On the most basic level, science sees love as a cocktail of chemicals released by the brain. Dopamine, produced by the hypothalamus, is a particularly well-publicized player in the brain's reward pathway. It releases when we do things that feel good to us. In this case, these things include spending time with the loved ones. From an evolutionary perspective, romantic love involves the primitive animal drive to find and keep preferred mates. Love keeps people bound and committed to one another, to raise children through infancy. This ensures our species will continue to reproduce, survive and thrive. The initial phase of falling in love is an extreme neurobiological state, characterized by a heightened response and high passion. Lust and attraction are driven by the sex hormones, estrogen and testosterone. During the next phase, this is increased intimacy, commitment and attachment. This is driven by the hormones oxytocin and vafoprazine. Oxytocin helps us feel safe and secure after the initial high cortisol and stress of the uncertain and risk of falling in love. Vafoprazine promotes behaviors of vigilance and being territorial and self-protective. Between oxytocin and vafoprazine, there is a balance of connection with others, while also protecting the person you are in love with and with yourself. So next time you watch a Disney Plus movie, think of the sensations the body has watching the movie.