How many of you all have experienced sudden nervousness on stage? Or how many of you just go blank and red in front of your crush and just can’t speak anything right. What about a sudden attraction for someone you never knew? Do you really think that it’s the naughty cupid who has targeted the two of you with his bow? A hopeless romantic or someone waiting ages for the true love of your life to just pounce before you, made for each other types? Well, sorry to burst the so called romantic bubble open, but this is actually a very weird, you might actually say the role of the mischievous continuously conspiring hormones of your body that just don’t leave you with a chance to escape fate. Yes, you got it right! Every action of yours is just under their stupid control, and gosh you never know when you are just going to be love struck. So, yes you don’t have the couples made in heaven stuff, you just have science taking its stand over again.
On a more serious note, hormone is derived from a Greek word “hormo” which basically means an impulse to set you into motion. This basically acts like a chemical messenger carrying your message from one part of your body to another. All multicellular organisms secrete hormones. Plant hormones are normally known as phytohormones. Animal hormones are divided into two kinds, the ones that are directly released into the blood (endocrine hormones) and the other kinds which are directly released into the ducts (exocrine), which are then released into the blood stream or from cell to cell by diffusion, a process called as paracrine signaling. Hormone cells are typically a specialized type of cells which are found residing in a particular endocrine gland like thyroid gland, ovaries, testes etc. these hormones exit their origin via exocytosis or other means of membrane transport. So yeah you can in a way compare it with the cupid’s arrow out of the glands directly targeting your heart and there you go ‘boommmm’!!! It’s fascinating to actually see how such small doses of hormones can have such tremendous effect on your body. These, sometimes even leading to such prodigious effects, that from time to time the arrow (hormone) is so strong that you just decide to commit yourself to that one person for your entire life!!! Doesn’t this amaze you? So, what exactly causes such extreme kind of response, such kind of immense love to strike you all of a sudden like a lightning bolt? The simple answer is hormones. Lets divide love into three basic stages so that the role of hormones is understood better – lust, attraction and attachment. When we first see someone beautiful or handsome the first skip of heart, the sudden thump we experience is just mere lust. It’s because of the release of the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone which draws us towards the opposite sex. The next part is attraction. You get more and more charmed and captivated by his/ her beauty. So love struck that you can think a very little of anything else. During this stage you have three hormones conspiring against all your wills to not fall in love – adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. During your initial stages of love your stress response is activated and your blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol increases. To make it worst, the effect of this is what you would least desire. You start stammering, sweating, your heart beat increases and your mouth goes dry. In short you make a fool out of yourself, making your feelings for the person before you completely evident. The next hormone is dopamine. This has the same effect of cocaine and its level increases when you are love struck. This hormone is basically plays the role of the reward hormone deviced by your body, making you feel good about possibly everything around you. You start losing your sleep, your energy level increases, leading to focused attention to every tiny detail for the happiness of the person you love. Coming to the last one – serotonin, this gives you a feeling of well-being and happiness, making the love of your life your first priority and his/ her thoughts keep popping into your mind every now and then. So now that we are done with lust and attraction, the last stage of love is attachment and the hormones involved here are Oxytocin and vasopressin. These hormones help building a bond between the two of you stronger in order for it to last forever.
So, now that we know everything about how hormones cause you to fall in love, who said that it’s all in the hands of the great almighty? It’s your own body dude that is compelling you to fall in love, its nature itself, so stop worrying too much and just let your hormones do everything for you!!!!
