The Four-Lettered Enigma

It’s the post-Valentine cool down, when the bombardment of love-themed notifications from your ‘friendly’ corporates have finally stopped.

Phew, a relief indeed. But, the damage is done already. Our minds are filled with stereotypical images of love that will inevitably shape our relationships. 

Why, though? What is love after all? 

There’s the intense, passionate, maddening love that all new couples know and treasure. This is driven by the brain chemical Dopamine, the “feel good” happiness chemical. It is the reason why indulging in all the various rituals of love feels so good!

Before this phase, there’s the chaotic exhilarating stage known as infatuation. This is also Dopamine at play along with Norepinephrine, both of which are responsible for the high heart rate, sweaty palms, and the excitement! 

However, the true ruler of the attraction phase, the one chemical that determines our mood and behavior towards those who we are attracted to, is Serotonin. This little chemical is responsible for all those obsessive thoughts of hopes, terrors, insecurities and fantasies about the person of interest. 

But, that’s not all there is to love, is there? Thankfully, there’s more.

The Domain of Oxytocin

There’s also that other type of love, the more mature and seasoned one. This is known mostly by couples who have lived together over prolonged periods of time. 

On time scales that are counted in years, love cannot be defined as the rapturous intense feeling that Dopamine provides. 

Instead, love becomes more about support, compassion, caring and togetherness. This is the kind of love that is all about warm hugs, cuddles, hand-holding and just knowing that you have someone in your life who cares, admires, understands and reciprocates to your needs. 

This is the domain of Oxytocin and it is also associated with the motherly love that we receive as infants and children. 

Fact File: Did you know that we are born into an Oxytocin cascade. Oxytocin is the main chemical that dominates the process of pregnancy. Our mothers stimulate Oxytocin release within our little infant brains by cuddling us. In other words, we are wired for Oxytocin right from birth.

This is an especially interesting and important chemical because it shatters the stereotypical perspectives that surround our understanding of love as solely restricted to romantic love. Oxytocin turns love into something more universal, more profound than just a candlelit dinner for two or any of the other myriad cis-gendered scenarios that the movies love reminding us of. 

In fact, scientists discovered that the satisfaction and increase in self-esteem that comes with feeling included is also an Oxytocin thing.

But, there is a flipside. 

These brain chemicals responsible for some of the most exalted emotions known to us, on the contrary, also have the power to induce some of the most negative states of mind that can be experienced by us.

We are frail creatures and hence, at some point or the other, the very mechanisms that drive us tend to bring us down. Such is the law of all systems, to be fair. 

The Pain of Being Wired for Love

Through a series of tests conducted across various demographics, spanning several years, multiple researchers tried to understand how an individual feels when they are excluded (Bartolo, 2019). 

Several methods were used to identify the intricate brain mechanisms at play during exclusion, the most popular of which was the ball-toss method. In the study, the experimenters themselves joined the participant unbeknownst to them. In most cases, it was two experimenters and one participant in a room, waiting for the test to begin. 

As they sit there, one of the experimenters brings out a ball and starts tossing it around to the other two. In the beginning, the sole participant is included in the game and starts tossing it back, enjoying themselves in the process. 

After a couple of throws, the two experimenters toss the ball only among themselves, excluding the participant completely. When the participant was later evaluated pertaining to how they registered the experience of exclusion, results showed that the experience activated those regions of the brain which register physical pain. 

In other words, several studies found that the pain of exclusion is as real as physical pain. 

Oxytocin is what drives mammalian creatures to roam in herds for safety and security. Oxytocin is what drove humans to form tribes and eventually, entire civilizations. So, just imagine the pain that one might feel when this fundamental need of ours is denied and outright rejected. As studies have shown, it can leave a deep wound that extends far beyond the skin or flesh and penetrates into our mental recesses.

Oxytocin Resonance Surges

Knowing the power that we wield, both for infinite love and infinite pain, is empowering. Knowing that with just a simple action, a simple reciprocation, a glance, a smile, with just a minute adjustment of our facial features we can trigger an Oxytocin Resonance Surge (ORS) for a fellow human being. How powerful is that?

 It’s easy to take such things for granted when the world feeds you unattainable and over-the-top visions of love. Yes, love is over-the-top and beyond this world, for sure! But, knowing that one can inspire this profound, mysterious, out-of-this-world experience with just a simple gesture or two is the real kicker. 

It’s time to broaden our understanding and deepen our experience of love. In a world where we find ourselves drowning in stereotypical and narrow perspectives of love, just a nice shot of ORS is enough to remind yourself and others that it’s much simpler and more real than all that. At the end of the day, it is inspiring to know that each one of us is capable of loving and being loved, as long as we adopt the broader and more truthful perspective of what love truly means. This is where inclusion really begins.

So, go out there and ignite an Oxytocin Resonance Surge with a fellow human being. You never know how much someone might need it. 

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Sources:

Bartolo, P. (2019). Belong and flourish–Drop out and perish: the belongingness hypothesis. In Perspectives on wellbeing (pp. 7-20). Brill.