Chemistry Of Love Essay

Everyone knows what love is. In fact, a lot of people have experienced the rush of falling in love for the first time. Around the world, people love - we think for love, dance for love, compose poems and stories about love, we tell myths and legends about love, we find for love, live for love, kill for love, and we die for love. People do just about everything to love and be loved, and the tendency to love might very well be programmed into us. However, we seldom consider love from a scientific point of view. An article in the Los Angeles Times suggests that “chemistry is the inexplicable, ineffable magic that happens when two people are profoundly attracted to each other.”(Kelleher, par. 4). Moreover, Drs. Michael Liebowitz and Donald Klein, physicians at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, proposed that “love is a chemical reaction” (Hinds, par. 13).

Urban Dictionary defines teenage love as “staying up late for each other and barely staying awake in class the next day.” (“Teenage Love”). Some people would call it having a certain ‘chemistry’– the instant connection, bond or common feeling between two individuals.

When people think about love, they often associate it with the heart. However, the true magic of love actually takes place inside the brain. Recent

Serotonin regulates mood which contributes to the feeling of calm and happiness of an individual (Blum, par. 13). Obsessive thoughts are also caused by the decrease in serotonin level in the brain (Fisher, sec. 3). Dr. Donatella Marazziti, a psychiatrist at Pisa University, found out that the amount of serotonin in the brain of a person in love is comparable to the low level of serotonin of a person with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (Blakeley, sec. 2). During the early stages of love, an individual often spends a considerable amount of time thinking about the person s/he loves, making sure that s/he spends ample time with the