Neuroscientist on the science of love

let's talk about what's happening today we are celebrating love and Valentine's Day isn't all about the romance and the flowers and the chocolates yeah I mean did you know there's actually a science to love so here to explain the chemistry behind love and how it works or doesn't work in relationships is neuroscientist Dr Nona Javid so good morning Dr Nona thanks for being with us happy Valentine's Day to you good morning Happy Valentine's Day all right so so there is a difference between romanti

c love and like the love of a child or the love of a pet but they all do unlock some similar chemicals in your body right yes um and not just love but actually any kind of emotion that you would have all of our habits come with a cocktail of emotion of chemicals and neurotransmitters and uh these chemicals and neurotransmitters just like you would go to the doctor for your annual labs they can get measured that way in your blood and a urine test they've even done uh with regards to love they've

done studies where they take a look at your brain and see which areas of your brain will actually you know uh lied up yeah when you are in love all right so it is interesting so let's break it down because you break love into several different stages right and a lot of people say Well it all begins with this physical attraction right there's got to be that physical attraction first so what kind of chemical reaction is happening in our body to have a physical one yes this is actually very true tr

ue or at least research says that it is true in this very first uh stage of Love uh romantic love that we would typically call this lust this is uh described as an intense sexual desire towards somebody um in this stage it's pretty much very physical we have our testosterone and our estrogens just soaring through the roof and this of course increases libido and uh again this this phase is really heavily focused on that physical and sexual attraction and then it does it quickly develop into that

honeymoon stage pretty much yeah the so the second stage of falling in love or developing into a long-term relationship would be the attraction period so this attraction period also known as the honeymoon stage when you're in the relationship the the it can be hazy like am I in the lust stage am I in the honeymoon stage but when you look at it from a chemical perspective from your how your neurotransmitters are releasing in your body it's actually wildly different um this honeymoon stage um ther

e's dopamine that gets released uh with dopamine this is where we create uh the emotions of ecstasy there's serotonin which is a happy molecule um but also in this phase interestingly enough and I think you guys will like this the the ventral tegmental area of the brain um will actually the ventral tegmental area there's this one particular area in the brain and that's the reward center of the brain so that's where it lights up over and over as we spend more time with them and them and so that's

the reward center that's actually the same area of the brain where we develop addictions to sugar or even drugs attachments okay is that the attachment thing that's the attachment one other quick thing in this area that's really important is that the um prefrontal cortex which is where we make logical decisions this area does not it gets dampened and does not work does not compute yeah I think I was born without that so the fourth stage the fourth stage is the highest form of love which is it's

selflove right so how does that show up in your body because some people really struggle with that self- Lov portion of it yeah absolutely um before the self-love we've got attachment which is where we are we develop sort of long-term attachment to somebody it's more comfortable oxytocin is released this is the cuddle hormone we meet I like the cuddle hormone yeah comfortable and calm and everything else and then at the very last this is really a requirement with uh self-love and self-mastery u

h because aside from these chemicals we also have patterns attachment style so we'll definitely want to make sure that we know what our patterns are and we are mastering ourselves so we're not triggered or we're not kind of recreating those chemical reactions in our body for lasting love let me ask you one last quick question because we're running out of time so if PE two people are in a relationship and they're in different stages is it fair to say that someone might not be capable or have the

chemicals capable of having that that long-term love yeah that's that's definitely possible and there's so many factors that play into this it's not just the chemistry but there's also the the patterns of what we have learned in our Behavior what we've observed our parents do or our previous relationships some people have the pattern of participating in a toxic relationship or showing up that way and so it's important to learn those patterns great Point all right because some people are stuck in

the physical yep and some people are already in attachment yep exactly yeah yeah all right Dr Nona this guy is all perplexed thank you so much for joining us that was really FAS and Happy Valentine's Day again thank you happy Valentine's Day guys MH