When you look up the exact definition of love, the definitions that you get as a result include having an intense feeling of deep affection, a great interest, and pleasure in something, and feeling a deep affection for someone. Although this might mean that love is different in everybody’s eyes, we can all agree that love holds a power against us that affects us in ways that are more complicated than we originally thought it to be.
Love begins in the brain. That rush of emotion and excitement we get when we see our crush down the hallway begins deep in our minds. Research done by professionals also indicates that people that are married tend to live longer. One of the largest studies on this subject examines the effect of marriage on mortality during an eight-year period in the 1990s. Using information from the National Health Interview Survey, researchers concluded that people who had never been married were 58% more likely to die than people who have been married. Although it may sound surprising, it’s been proven in many cases that love can have an impact on your health, whether that be negatively or positively.
It first begins with a crush, a spark of attraction that triggers a dopamine pathway deep in the middle of the brain. (For those who don’t know: dopamine is known as the “feel-good” neurotransmitter, but it also tells us to pay attention in order to expect rewards of some kind.) Dopamine then prepares us for the next step: beginning to fall in love. High levels of dopamine hold back a hormone called serotonin, which is the key hormone that stabilizes our mood, feelings of well-being, and happiness. This hormone impacts your entire body, enabling brain cells and other nervous system cells to communicate with each other. Then the brain has made up closure by releasing oxytocin: a hormone and neurotransmitter that is associated with empathy, trust, and relationship-building. It is sometimes referred to as the “love hormone,” because levels of oxytocin increase during hugging, intimacy, and kissing. It helps couples to create strong bonds learning to trust each other.
It’s not just romantic love that can improve your heart health. Having close, loving relationships with your friends, family, and even pets can have cardiovascular benefits. It almost seems fitting that the symbol for love is a red heart, given all the heart benefits of being in love. When your body receives a great amount of love, whether that be romantic or platonic, it creates hormones that are amazing for the nervous system and, by correlation, the heart. The warm feeling of affection and interaction builds up our parasympathetic nervous system, helping us relax and find peace around us which then reduces stress and feelings of depression and anxiety. “Loving feelings also tamp down our sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for our fight or flight reactions. When relaxed, blood vessels tend to dilate a little bit more, and blood pressure tends to drop,” Jauhar said. A study including 60 couples found that their blood pressure was lower when socially interacted with their loved ones and people apart from a positive community. It is also more likely when you have heart disease that you will recover faster with your partner’s influence to remind you to take medication and such.
Love also opens up our minds and makes us want to try new things with that specific person due to how comfortable we are with them. Comfort and knowing that you will always have someone to talk to no matter what, knowing they care has a big impact on someone, especially if they weren’t in such a good place before, can positively impact you. Being loved can make it easier to get through stress, anxiety, and depression. Knowing that someone loves you will lead one to more positive thinking, ending with the result of love having a great impact on mental health.
However, there are also negative impacts to health that can be traced back to love. Heartbreak and toxic relationships (i.e.: abusive relationships) are just a few sad examples of how the impact of love on the heart works in reverse. People that have these types of relationships in their life tend to have more heart problems.
“We know depression and anxiety tend to cause more vascular inflammation and increases chances of blood clotting: most heart attacks are caused by blood clots in the vessels that feed the heart.” States Dr. Sandeep Jauhar. Dr. Jauhar’s studies have shown that the risk of a heart attack increases for men and women who have experienced multiple divorces, with women facing the highest risk. Women who had divorced twice had a 77% higher risk of having a heart attack; twice-divorced men had a 30% risk, which disappeared when they remarried. Remarried women, on the other hand, were still at high risk. “The heart was the seed of the soul. It was where our emotions resided; emotions like love or courage. And what I have observed in my two decades now as a cardiologist is that the heart that is associated with love, that metaphorical heart, directly impacts on our biological heart. People who have healthy, loving relationships have better heart health.” explained Dr. Juhar.
If a person without a healthy amount of social support were to have a heart attack after a recent heartbreak, there is a higher risk of death and a longer recovery time. This essentially means one thing: breaking up can break your heart. There’s a fascinating condition called broken heart syndrome where the heart changes its shape in response to acute emotional disruption, such as a breakup or the death of a loved one. Known formally as stress-induced cardiomyopathy, the condition strikes mostly women. In scientific terms, this occurs when the heart is stunned by sudden, acute stress and its left ventricle weakens. Instead of contracting into its normal arrow-like shape, the left ventricle fails to function, creating a more rounded, pot-like shape.
Now that love has been proven to have an effect on our bodies, love seems a little more complicated now, doesn’t it? It almost seems like it would just be easier to fall in love than to stay single. Although love is a risk that may end in heartbreak, remember that some risks are worth it—it might just come with some health benefits!
