The chemistry of Love

The chemistry of love is not a matter of heart at all but the work of five chemicals coursing through our veins.

Our social relationship is not a matter of heart at all but a play of these 5 chemicals.

  When the mother hears her 7-day old baby crying in hunger, milk is let down from her bosom automatically without control.
We know, that is OXYTOCIN working. But most of us probably do not know the rest. Our social relationship is not a matter of heart but these 5 chemicals.

-1-

For our brain, friends are as necessary to our wellbeing as food.
Dancing together, playing music together, or even just having a good conversation releases OXYTOCIN: the chemical that produces a sense of pleasure.

-2-

DOPAMINE is secreted in response to any unusual gain. It gives us the kick hence is addictive.

Who better understood this than Marc Zuckerberg ? He coded the ‘Like‘s into FB- a circular red badge over a blue F. It’s unpredictability gives us our Dopamine hits. No wonder FB posting is addictive.

-3-

By finding a niche, any niche, where you can feel superior to other people – for instance, funnier, richer or more intelligent gives you a sense of higher status.
A sense of your status increasing, even by a small amount, activates the brain’s reward circuitry.

Mediator: SEROTONIN.

-4-

For us to be alert, our brains require exactly the right level of norepinephrine, the chemical that’s triggered when we’re scared. Fear activates our alertness.

The monoamine that produces anxiety, fear, palpitations in us:
NOR-ADRENALINE. It has saved our ancestors from the predators in the jungles of Africa.

-5-

And the fifth messenger is CORTISOL.

Sometimes we can solve a puzzle by intuition that defies every logic. For this we must experience the right amount of anxiety ( nor-adrenaline) and right degree of arousal ( dopamine ).

But if our anxiety and arousal are too high, we become extremely stressed and make many unforced errors. This brings in the fifth messenger, CORTISOL to rescue- the stress hormone.

At the end the chemistry of love.