The Brain in Love: 12 Lessons to Enhance Your Love Life (10 page)

Oxytocin

Oxytocin is released by the pituitary gland and acts on the ovaries and testes to regulate reproduction. Researchers suspect that this
hormone is important for forming close social bonds. The levels of this chemical rise when couples watch romantic movies, hug, or hold hands. Prairie voles, when injected with oxytocin, pair much faster than normally. Blocking oxytocin prevents them from bonding in a normal way. This is similar in humans, because couples bond to certain characteristics in each other. This is why you are attracted to the same type of man or woman repeatedly. In general, levels of oxytocin are lower in men, except after an orgasm, where they are raised more than 500 percent. This may explain why men feel very sleepy after an orgasm. This is the same hormone released in babies during breast-feeding, which makes them sleepy as well.

Oxytocin is also related to the feelings of closeness and being “in love” when you have regular sex for several reasons. First, the skin is sensitized by oxytocin, encouraging affection and touching behavior. Then, oxytocin levels rise during subsequent touching and eventually even with the anticipation of being touched. Oxytocin increases during sexual activity, peaks at orgasm, and stays elevated for a period of time after intercourse. This may also be why men are more likely to talk and feel emotionally connected after sex. In addition, there is an amnesic effect created by oxytocin during sex and orgasm that blocks negative memories people have about each other for a period of time. The same amnesic effect occurs from the release of oxytocin during childbirth, while a mother is nursing to help her forget the labor pain, and during long, stressful nights spent with a newborn so that she can bond to her baby with positive feelings and love.

Higher oxytocin levels are also associated with an increased feeling of trust. In a landmark study by Michael Kosfeld and colleagues from Switzerland published in the journal
Nature
, intranasal oxytocin was found to increase trust. Men who inhale a nasal spray spiked with oxytocin give more money to partners in a risky investment game than do men who sniff a spray containing a placebo. This substance fosters the trust needed for friendship, love, families, economic transactions, and political
networks. According to the study’s authors, “Oxytocin specifically affects an individual’s willingness to accept social risks arising through interpersonal interactions.” The scientists studied oxytocin’s influence on male college students playing an investment game. Each of fifty-eight men was paid $64 to participate in the experiment. The volunteers were paired up, and one man in each pair was randomly assigned to play the role of an investor and the other to play the role of a trustee. Each participant received twelve tokens, valued at thirty-two cents each and redeemable at the end of the experiment. The investors decided how many tokens to cede to the trustees. Both participants, sitting face to face, knew that the experimenters would quadruple that investment. The trustee then determined whether to keep the entire, enhanced pot or give some portion of the proceeds—whatever amount seemed fair—to the investor. Among the investors who had inhaled oxytocin, about half gave all their tokens to the trustees, and most of the rest contributed a majority of their tokens. In contrast, only one-fifth of the investors who had inhaled a placebo spray forked over all their tokens, and another one-third parted with a majority of their tokens. Oxytocin influenced only the investors. Trustees returned comparable amounts of money after inhaling either spray. The trustee responses were generous when the investors offered most of their tokens and were stingy when the investment was small. The influence of oxytocin was limited to social situations. The oxytocin influence is “a remarkable finding,” says neuroscientist Antonio Damasio of the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City in an editorial published with the research report. Damasio had previously argued that the hormone acts somewhat as a love potion. “It adds trust to the mix, for there is no love without trust,” he says.

Bonding chemicals can also enhance fertility. Increases in oxytocin have enhanced fertility in some studies in animals. In humans, increased oxytocin levels are associated with decreased stress levels and increased trust, both of which are likely to enhance conception.

Vasopressin

Other clues to male commitment come from new research on the hormone vasopressin. This chemical is involved in regulating sexual persistence, assertiveness, dominance, and territorial markings. Not surprisingly, it is found in higher levels in the male brain. Why do some men constantly live with the discomfort of a wandering eye, while others remain content with fidelity? The difference may have to do with vasopressin, which has been found in male voles (little rodents) to make the difference between stay-at-home dads and one-night-stand artists, for example. The voles with a certain brain distribution of vasopressin were monogamous, while others with a different pattern were not.

High levels of oxytocin and vasopressin may interfere with dopamine and norepinephrine pathways, which may explain why attachment grows as mad, passionate love fades. The antidote may be doing novel things together to goose the two love neurotransmitters. Elevated testosterone can suppress oxytocin and vasopressin. There is good evidence that men with higher testosterone levels tend to marry less often, be more abusive in their marriage, and divorce more regularly. The reverse can also be true. If a man holds a baby, levels of testosterone go down, perhaps in part because of oxytocin and vasopressin going up.

The trust, bonding, and persistence created by oxytocin and vasopressin are critical for a partnership to succeed. However, the release of these hormones is not enough by itself to keep two people compatible sexually and romantically. It is at this time when it is critical for partners to communicate their desires and needs to each other both in the bedroom and outside of the bedroom, to listen attentively and be mutually supportive of the bond that has formed from attraction to commitment. If you haven’t seen it yet, see the movie
March of the Penguins
for one of the best demonstrations of true commitment.

Detachment Chemicals: Why It Hurts
(Serotonin and Endorphins)            

When Shawna and Nick broke up, he was a mess. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, hearing her voice in his head, feeling her touch on his body, and smelling her scent in his clothes. After being together for five years, everything reminded him of Shawna, from songs to pictures to movies to waking up and going to bed. She had been wrapped up in most of the thoughts of his day. A part of him was okay with her going away, in fact, even glad. They could never get on the same page in the relationship, and they had broken up several times before. Nick had the sense that she would not always be there for him and that she would go away if things got tough. Yet despite the deep ambivalence in the relationship, he was still a mess when she left. He couldn’t sleep, he felt constantly anxious and unbalanced, and he even had panic attacks when the longing for Shawna overwhelmed him.

What happens in the brain when you lose someone you love? Why do we hurt, long, even obsess about the other person? When we love someone, they come to live in the emotional or limbic centers of our brains. He or she actually occupies nerve-cell pathways and physically lives in the neurons and synapses of the brain. When we lose someone, either through death, divorce, moves, or breakups, our brain starts to get confused and disoriented. Since the person lives in the neuronal connections, we expect to see her, hear her, feel her, and touch her. When we cannot hold her or talk to her as we usually do, the brain centers where she lives becomes inflamed looking for her. Overactivity in the limbic brain has been associated with depression and low serotonin levels, which is why we have trouble sleeping, feel obsessed, lose our appetites, want to isolate ourselves, and lose the joy we have about life. A deficit in endorphins, which modulate pain and pleasure pathways in the brain, also occurs, which may be responsible for the physical pain we feel during a breakup.

Getting a Loved One out of Your Head and the Fishhooks out of Your Heart

In Dean Koontz’s novel
Velocity
, the killer uses fishhooks to torture Billy Wilens, a good-natured bartender who finds himself in a random storm of murder and mayhem. The killer, a twisted psychopathic performer, renders Billy unconscious and plants three fishhooks deep in his forehead. The fishhooks were extremely painful to extricate, requiring alcohol and painkillers, and they left deep scars.

When a loved one leaves us, or even when we are the ones who instigate a breakup, many of us feel like Billy Wilens. We have deep wounds, like fishhooks, that leave lasting scars. Many of us use alcohol or any sort of painkillers (such as drugs, sex, or excessive work) to medicate the pain. I have firsthand knowledge of what it takes to survive the painful loss of a love. I have left relationships and I have been left. Being left is definitely harder.

On one occasion after being left, it felt as though I had many fishhooks in my mind and my heart that were painfully pulled whenever I remembered any good thing my lost lover had done for or with me. Pictures, songs, friends, cars, names (she had a common name), cities, pillows, and restaurants all reminded me of her. I was a neurochemical mess for nearly six months. I even scanned myself in the middle of the process to see what grief looked like in my brain. It showed excessive anterior cingulate gyrus activity (not normal for me), which was partially why I felt so sad and obsessed.

From my own experience and work with patients who have lost loved ones, here are five tips to survive and eventually thrive through the loss of a love.

1. Above all, stay healthy. At first, we just want to medicate the pain. We eat or drink too much, stop exercising, wallow, and isolate ourselves. Stop that behavior immediately. Watch what you eat, exercise more, not less (exercise has been found to be as effective as the antidepressant Zoloft for depression), and spend time
with your friends. Make sure you get enough sleep. During my breakup, sleep was very hard for me. The supplement kava kava was helpful on a short-term basis.

2. Do not idealize the other person. Whenever we just focus on someone’s good qualities, the pain increases; when we focus on his or her bad qualities, the pain decreases as we are glad to be rid of them. Spend time to write out the bad times and your ex’s bad points. Whenever we lose someone we love, there is a tendency to exclusively remember the wonderful things about her. Idealizing people impairs the grieving process and makes us hurt more. Be balanced. You do not have to vilify them, but be honest about their bad qualities and focus on them to help soothe the pain. One helpful technique I found during the loss of a painful love was to make up a mnemonic that helped me remember her bad qualities. That way, when the fishhook memories pulled painfully at my heart, I could immediately remember, and silently repeat to my self, why I was glad she was gone. For example, if her name was Hanna, you could use the letters of her name to label the bad or irritating qualities: Hanna could stand for …

Hairy lip

Argumentative

Never able to say she was sorry

No memorable sex

Ambivalent about our relationship

You may need these memory skills in the midst of grief to remember why you are happy someone is gone.

3. Cry, then hide the pictures. In the beginning of the breakup, take some time to allow yourself to feel the pain. Crying can be a wonderful release of the built-up tension in your limbic brain. But after a good cry, eliminate the constant triggers to your nervous system. Go through the house, your computer, and workplace and collect the pictures and gifts, then hide them somewhere. Hide
them initially, rather than burning them, because you never know what will happen in the future. If you get back together, you will feel terrible about having burnt them. Time will tell. A few months down the line you will make better decisions about whether or not you want to keep some of the things that represent your relationship. But, in the short term, get them out of sight.

4. Love must be tough. When you act weak, needy, or demanding during a breakup, you literally push the other person away. You are no longer attractive or appealing. You seem and act as a victim. Being well is not only the best revenge; it is the best way to be well.

5. Do “The Work.” Byron Katie has written a wonderful, wise book titled
Loving What Is
. In the book, written with her husband, Stephen Mitchell, she discusses the power of asking yourself four questions and doing a turnaround. During my breakup it was the single most helpful technique to get my usually happy, healthy self back. I learned that I suffer whenever I do not accept what is. When I fight against reality, I am out of my mind. Katie teaches you to understand the thoughts that cause the suffering, such as “I miss her,” and ask four questions and a turnaround.

• Question #1: Is it true? You bet. I miss her terribly.
  

• Question #2: Is it
  absolutely
  true? Not absolutely. I do not miss our ambivalence, her resentment, and her disappointment.
  

• Question #3: How do you feel when you have the thought “I miss her”? Miserable, remorseful, stupid, ashamed—which means my thoughts were what was torturing me, not her.
  

• Question #4: Who would I be without the thought “I miss her”? I would be my usual happy self.
  

Katie says to then turn the thought around—I miss her becomes “I miss me.” I miss my normal, happy, sound-sleeping, wake-up-singing, healthy, driven, successful self.

These four questions and the turnaround can literally change your life. I have seen it work for many of my patients as well.

Lesson #3: The dance of relationships is both chemically and environmentally driven. Understanding the ingredients of the dance can help you be more effective both when the music starts and stops
.