What happens when you fall in love?
Are you suspecting something strange in yourself? Do you feel a ticklish feeling in your stomach, these days? Or maybe, you need free advice to confirm the signs of romantic love! Boom! I caught you. Hold on. Stop thinking about that special someone. Think about the iconic duo Romeo and Juliet. Two pristine souls came together to explain to the world what love is. It is a blissful feeling that gets purer with time. It does not fade away.
If you think that it is all fiction, take the example of Egyptian history’s most loved couple Antonio-Cleopatra. It is a powerful romantic love story that intensifies the sacrifices made in love, for your love, by your love. Believe me, if you are in love, a big smile would be on your face right now.
“Eleanor Roosevelt once quoted that the one who gives love is getting educated in it.”
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She was right. Love is an enthralling experience. It is an education where the beginners’ become experts once they know the A-B-C-D of love. Often, people like you are curious to know about the calculations equating it is love. Don’t worry. There are some great indicators to help you know your romantic love equation. The indicators are based on five major categories- Physical attraction, Mental, Emotional, Digital, and Sexual Behavior. Based on them, are five great signs to understand what exactly happens to you when you fall in love–
Read more about signs of love: https://www.icytales.com/signs-that-youre-falling-in-love/
1. Your Body Is Reacting Differently!
Sweaty hands, long gaze, butterfly feeling in the stomach, and an apple-like red face! These symptoms are of a no-treatment disease- Love. According to the specialists at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, when a person falls in love, the part of the brain responsible for obsessive-compulsive behaviors gets active due to an increased flow of blood. The rush of hormones like dopamine, adrenaline, and norepinephrine gets increased. Ever looked at him/her walking towards you and patted yourself on the head for that stare after he/she has gone?
You don’t need to disturb your head from now on. You don’t need to be amazed either with the strange feeling you get only when you make eye contact with him/her. Harvard Psychologist, Zick Rubin experimented on long-time couples, whose stare lasted 75% of the time while speaking as compared to the average of 30-60% of the time. It concluded that good eye contact is a sign of lasting love. If you want to know what really happens to you when you fall in love, then a good gaze or eye contact with that person is a sign.
Do you find your palms sweat even during the winter season or do you find your cheeks red even during the rainy season? It is love season, my friend. It happens due to the increased flow of adrenaline and norepinephrine when a person is falling in love. Also, Dopamine is responsible for that butterfly feeling in the stomach. Wait, there’s more and this is the craziest body reaction for those who want to know what happens to you when you madly fall in love. When you are in love, it eases your physical pain. It has been proven through various studies.
In a behavioral study, it was found that when women who had long-term romantic relationships were brought in contact with thermal heat, by holding the hands of their partners or seeing their pictures, they felt it ease chronic pain.
“Even love has science behind it!”
2. You Think, Overthink and Take Stress!
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It is the morning time and you are about to get up from your bed when his/her thought pops up in your mind. Okay! Crush it! It is the evening time and you are on your way back to your home when his smiling face keeps coming in front of your eyes. Scratch that too! You are about to sleep and are thinking of the shirt that suited him or what he might be doing at that moment, you wish to be in love with them just like those other happy couples in committed relationships. The idea of falling in love starts with thinking about that person and ends with thinking about that person.
If you go through this thinking disease, then why are you even asking what really happens to you when you fall in love? Owing to thinking, overthinking comes into the picture. Many relationship experts say that the early phase of love feels like the intake of cocaine. Dr. Shauna Springer, a Chief Psychologist at Stella Center, terms it the “cocaine-rush phase.” It means that if you feel that you are out of your mind, then congratulations, you are high on love! When overthinking takes a toll on you, stress takes birth. What if you go to college and don’t see him/her sitting on that backbench?
Or do you go for a hangout and see him/her having fun with another boy/girl? Or he/she ignores you for some reason? Lastly, girls, what if he does not like your baby pink dress? And boys, what if she does not like your blue denim shirt? Let me stop here. All such low patience and doubts would result in an increase in the cortisol hormone. Consequently, you are sure to get stressed. This initial stage of falling for someone only brings stress because there are fears of rejection and reciprocation from the other one. The moment you get together with him/her in a bond, stress is going to reduce.
In a study done in 2004, the new couples had an increase in the secretion of cortisol, the stress hormone. After a year or two, the hormone levels came back to normal. The study confirmed that when he/she is all over your mind and you are going crazy thinking about him, it is love. If ‘good stress’ is turning the tables in your heart, the lovey-dovey turn is about to come in your life. By the time you get stressed again in such a way, you would know that is just one of the answers to “What happens to you body and mind when you fall in love”!
Photo by Travis Grossen on Unsplash/Copyright 2022
Donatella Marazziti, a professor of psychiatry as well as the director of the University of Pisa’s Laboratory of Psychopharmacology, has shown that people who are just starting a new relationship have lower levels of serotonin in their brains. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder patients also have lower serotonin levels in their brains. As stated in mental floss, ‘It is easy to conceive of early stages of love as a weak, transient version of obsessive behavior because both situations (to varying degrees) can give rise to emotions of uneasiness and intrusive thought.’ But you shouldn’t be worried about just your committed relationship.
Read about the darkest truth about love: https://www.icytales.com/unraveling-the-darkest-truth-about-love/
3. Your Emotions Take Charge and Rule You
Did you tell him/her about your awful past? I am sure you must have told that person little secrets of yours. Only the closest people or no one might know those secrets. If you have opened up about your repressed emotions, there is a special comfort you feel around him/her. You have no issues in trusting that person with your deep talks. This emotional intimacy or vulnerability is a big sign of what happens to you when you are in love.
Brené Brown, an expert on social connections from the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, conducted research that revealed that the way to a soulful connection was vulnerability. However, James Gross from Stanford University studied that when we hide our true emotions, then the other person does not feel good being with us and expresses a sense of discomfort. It makes it clear that where there is love, lies exposure of emotions and it is a positive and brave thing to do.
In 2010 research published in the journal PLoS ONE, people in a new romantic relationship had fMRI scans. The researchers discovered that viewing photos of romantic partners enhanced activity in multiple reward-processing areas of the brain, indicating that love (or distraction) may alleviate the pain sensation. When I say emotional intimacy in the initial stages, it does not limit it to the vulnerable side of emotions. The strong side should also exist.
3.1. What Are the Elements of That Strong Side?
- Feeling that he/she is the only person you are interested in
- He/she becomes your priority
- You could do anything for his/her happiness
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Okay, gear up for some fun now. You doubt that you love someone. And let’s assume that there is already someone searching for these signs, suspecting they have fallen for you. Did your heart bother about this potential lover? I predict it is a No! Taking this assumption further, a potential lover is your good friend. He/she needs you. But, here comes the twist! The one you are falling for also needs you. Whose needs did your heart prioritize? I predict the one you are falling for!
The last twist in the plot comes. After being there for the one you are falling for, you come to know that he/she could become happy only when you go to help your potential lover first. And I guess that you went to help your potential lover. The moral of the story is that your emotions are converting into the purest emotion, love. That special someone is your priority and no one else interests you. All you want is to see him/her happy.
The increased secretion of phenylethylamine is responsible for the focused interest in him/her. Many brain chemical changes take place because of this emotional intimacy. But, your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) plays quite some role in this. In the context of our topic, EQ relates to the awareness of your emotions if they are healthy or not. It helps you to determine if the reactions of the one you are falling in love with, fill warmth in your veins or not after exposing emotions. A warm feeling after talking to them declares it a sign of love. Read to know why you end up falling for the wrong guy: https://www.icytales.com/the-top-reasons-you-end-falling-love-with-the-wrong-guy/
4. You Become Digitally Addicted to Them
To talk about this, let me mention Dopamine again. I mentioned it in the first point. It is a hormone connected to the ‘intense pleasure’ or ‘reward’ part of our brain. Whenever something positive happens and blows your mind away, this hormone gets active. It gets active in such a way that even addiction could also happen. A prolonged addiction could turn unhealthy after some time. Let’s bring digital addiction into play, now.
You hear the sound of a notification. The brain expects that it is a text message from that special someone. It thus hits your brain positively and the Dopamine gets active. You feel a sense of addiction to keep checking the phone every time. Also, every time you refresh your social media feed, it is to check any updates from him/her. You tend to stalk him/her at times. You go to check only that one view or like or comment on your social media post.
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Even if you are not a social media freak and an inactive phone user, you expect his/her name as the caller when the phone rings. The sum of the matter is all of these things clubbed together actually show what happens to you when you fall deeply in love. A digital addiction as a beginner is good to identify it is love.
But, take care when you become an expert at love! Digital addiction leads to things like pubbing. When you use the phone too much, the chances of becoming a perpetrator of pubbing are high. In the later stages of love, when he/she would be physically present around you, this pubbing would lead to ignoring him/her. Pubbing is simply snubbing the people around you as you are devoted to your cell phones. This was just a bonus tip from my side for the future!
5. Sexual Desire Increases!
If you are feeling attracted towards him/her sexually, it does not confirm that it is love. It could be lust too. To counter this confusion, check if the above signs happen with you or not. If you go through major signs from above, then consider this last one as the mega sign. The feeling of being physically intimate lingers in the heart when you are in love. Do you like the aroma of his/her cologne and something within attracts you even more?
This time there are two naughty culprits behind this increase in intimacy drive. The first one is the culprit of all! No prizes for guessing! It is the naughty hormone Dopamine. The second culprit has many names. Some call it the ‘cuddle hormone’ while some term it the ‘love hormone.’ The actual name of the hormone is Oxytocin. What is their connection with the increase in the sexual drive?
When you meet that person or even think about him/her, the dopamine gets activated in the area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. It releases testosterone at a higher amount which in turn affects the genitals and increases the intimacy desire. According to the American Psychological Association, oxytocin is found in the brain and the hypothalamus in the brain secretes this substance. It is a calming and relaxing hormone, which signifies a sense of attachment. The Association claims that these hormones increase during the feeling of physical intimacy/physical sensation.
Look, if you feel it is love, then call it so. But, if you think it is love, I am scared, it is not! You have to use your heart to feel it and not your head to think about it. It is a no-brainer that if you are experiencing any of the five great signs, I wish that a day would come when he/she would be searching about the following on the internet because of you.
Watch more related to this:
Read if you have fallen in love for the first time: https://www.icytales.com/first-love-things-that-make-special/
-Edited by Steffy Michae|3/7/22
Last Updated on by Steffy Michael
