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What makes love, love?
By Emily Francos — Written on Oct 14, 2022
Psychological facts about love prove that when someone falls in love, the brain releases all types of hormones and chemicals that make you feel over-the-top attraction and lust.
Most everyone feels attraction on a psychological level, but the brain is what makes us fall in love. When you meet "the one," you will get lost in their eyes and know deep down that you are meant to be together.
There are some wild scientifically-proven facts about love.
Love can make you do some crazy things, but on a deeper level, your body sometimes knows before you do that you are meant to be together.
Sometimes you just have to listen to your gut because it's never going to lead you astray. More than anything, listen to your emotions about love because once you know that you are in love with someone, then that's all that matters.
Here are 25 mind-blowing psychological facts about love:
1. Love causes a couple's heart rate to synchronize
When you are deeply committed to someone in a relationship, you will notice that your heartbeats synchronize. This creates a deeper bond between you and your partner.
2. Lust is different than love
Lust is a way we psychologically are driven to reproduce. Testosterone and estrogen are the primary hormones that produce these lustful feelings.
For relationships based on lust, you are more into the physical, but when a relationship is based on love, you want to know the person on a conversational and emotional level.
3. Love hormones can make you do crazy things
Jealousy is something that is caused by oxytocin, one of the love hormones. If oxytocin is elevated in someone's body, it can lead them to do things that are very toxic and bad for their relationship.
4. Love is really three feelings in one
Love actually consists of three different sensations. According to Helen Fisher, anthropologist and human behavior researcher of the biology of love and attraction, what we have come to call "love" is a combination of lust, attraction, and attachment.
5. Love is monogamous across many species
Humans are not the only species that mate for life. Many other species, such as doves, wolves, etc. also tend to mate with one another for life.
6. Love makes people do crazy things
When you fall for someone, you may do things you normally wouldn't do in an everyday relationship. When someone is aroused sexually, their brain turns off a person's self-awareness, critical thinking, and rationality. This can lead to some bad decisions.
7. Love makes you healthier
A 2014 study found that married people were less likely to develop certain cardiovascular diseases. The study found that "married people were 5 percent less likely to have any vascular disease compared with singles," as well as "8 percent, 9 percent, and 19 percent lower odds of abdominal aortic aneurysm, cerebrovascular disease, and peripheral arterial disease, respectively."
8. Love makes you happier
Whenever you're feeling down, it might be helpful to think about the person you love.
According to a study carried out by Fisher, love releases dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for giving you that happy feeling.
9. You know within four minutes if you love someone
Love is something your body recognizes very quickly. An iconic study by psychology professor Arthur Aron found that you can feel an intense closeness to someone after just four minutes of staring into each other's eyes.
10. Love can make you lose weight.
Love produces oxytocin which causes emotional happiness, but it also can suppress your appetite (and make you not be able to sleep!). A 2015 study found that the presence of oxytocin in men reduced caloric intake and had "beneficial metabolic effects."
11. You're most likely to fall in love with someone "in your league"
According to a 2011 study, people tend to make moves on those who are approximately at the same level of attractiveness.
12. You are really blinded by your love
When you are with someone, your body naturally deactivates the neural pathways in the brain that accounts for negative emotions. This is when your body shuts down critical assessments of your love.
13. Multiple parts of the brain help you fall in love
Fisher's research found that your brain releases hormones from different parts of the brain, most notably the prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, and pituitary gland. The resulting chemicals you feel so good about the person you are with that you start falling in love.
14. Love is chemically similar to OCD
In the early stages of love, most people have lower levels of serotonin in their bodies and a higher level of cortisol. Serotonin is connected to happiness, while cortisol is connected to stress.
These levels have been found to be very similar to people who have been diagnosed with OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), and have been found to explain why we are out of sorts when we fall in love with someone.
"It's what gives you the elation and the craving that is basic to romantic love," Fisher has explained.
15. Love attachment feelings are not limited to romantic relationships
Attachment, one of the feelings that drive love, is also apparent in maternal relationships, especially in bonding. Oxytocin and vasopressin are the major hormones released when there are feelings of attachment.
16. Love and intimacy are connected to creativity
Studies have found that love influences the mind to be a lot more creative and abstract. When people think of intimacy, it makes them focus on the present and not the long term so it is a way of living in the now.
17. The same emotional feeling of love can also be found in chocolate
Chocolate causes the same psychological effects as love does. When you eat chocolate, your body lets off the hormone phenylethylamine, which is also a chemical released through love.
18. Holding hands with your loved one releases stress and pain
Another study has shown that couples who hold hands have a deeper connection and can make each other feel better in stressful situations or if their partner is in pain.
19. Love can make you sick
When someone falls in love, they fall into lovesickness at some point. When you fall in love, your body releases cortisol, which is a stress hormone, that suppresses a person's immune system. This gives you a greater opportunity to get sick.
20. Love can cause heartbreak
Sometimes love just hurts. At many points, people are heartbroken and it can cause broken heart syndrome. This is when the heart is injured by the physical stress of the loss of someone they love and is more likely to happen to women.
21. Your pupils can tell you if you are in love
A 2015 study showed that when you're attracted to someone, your pupils dilate. And, as well know, attraction is one of the major players in love.
22. Love, at first sight, is real
Falling in love might only take 1/5 of a second. This is where the terms insta-love and love, at first sight, come from.
23. Love really causes butterflies in your stomach
When you get butterflies in your stomach, it is actually caused by adrenaline being released in the body (which can be confusing if you feel them when you're dating someone already!).
24. Love is a natural pain reliever
It has been proven that seeing your partner in some way can help decrease your physical pain.
25. Love is all that matters
In a relationship, it has been found that no matter what happens, love is something that will pull through.
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Emily Francos is a writer who covers relationships, pop culture, and news & entertainment topics.