For the Love of Nature

Brains and Bodies in Love

February 14, 2023 Laura Fawks Lapole & Katy Reiss Season 7 Episode 2
For the Love of Nature
Brains and Bodies in Love
Show Notes Transcript

This Valentine’s Day, Katy and Laura are throwing away the romance in exchange for the cold, unfeeling science behind “love.” Romantic love impacts both our brains and our bodies, sometimes in permanent ways. Is love just a chemical cocktail, or something more?




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Laura:

Hello and welcome to For The Love of Nature, a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature, and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura. And

Katy:

I'm Katie. And today we're gonna be talking about how being in love with someone can physically affect you in unexpected ways,

Laura:

Well, in the past, if anybody's listened to us before, right around Valentine's Day, we've always talked about animal sex, but we were like, you know what, let's change it up and kind of talk about

Katy:

people. No, that was Laura's idea. I was still all on the sex talk. But yeah, whatever. Yeah. Well,

Laura:

I mean, we could talk, I mean, it's gonna public up with talking about people. I talk about sex I'm just saying I wanted to just dive into humans rather than animals. But still on the same concept of love science. Yes. Just like a really, like the science of just like a eighties

Katy:

beat, right. All right. So a while ago, in one of the episodes I talked about how I got that mud water. The, oh yeah. The. Okay, great.

Laura:

Here it is.

Katy:

Sounds so gross. Here it is. Here is my review of it. Mud water, which I think is just spelled M U D W T R. Yeah. M

Laura:

u d slash wt r. It's like the mushroom slash other things. Yeah, there's all kinds of like lines, man, and I'm in the mushrooms, but yeah, no, or I like the taste of mushrooms,

Katy:

so here it is. Did it? The whole claim is that you can drink that instead of coffee, and it gives you the same amount of caffeine and energy and all that. Without, like, without the jitters jitters. 100% true. 100% true. However,

Laura:

so you, it, it fulfilled the caffeine checkbox. Oh,

Katy:

for sure. For sure. And I definitely had a lot of energy. If anybody knows or talks to me, I swear by drinking celery juice in the morning. I know it's, listen, I know it's, and and you can't buy it from the store folks. You gotta make, yeah. Gotta make, couldn't

Laura:

you imagine the market for celery

Katy:

juice? You gotta, you ha Well, they, they make it. They sell it, but you gotta make it yourself. So I have a juicer. I have, so I always have so much celery in my fridge, like, it looks like I'm living with a rabbit. But right now I have I don't know, like. Stock, huge stocks in my fridge right now. But I'm, I am telling you whenever I'm going through some health problems right now and that it always, always freaking helps. I, I, there's nothing in celery. You, you would be surprised There's a lot more than what you think. And so I've had people including myself, that's how I like whenever I was like losing all that. Celery juice, boom. The weight, the energy that I have, all that stuff. Fantastic. The energy,

Laura:

no, it literally has no calories. So what's in it? No, there's

Katy:

minerals

Laura:

and stuff in it. There's still, well, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. But it's so crazy that it would give you energy, but it have zero calories

Katy:

and you have to, it's, it's a whole thing. And there's like a bunch of like celebrities and stuff that were on it years ago. Like you, you get up in the morning, you have to do it first thing on an empty stomach. Like a glass of it, like eight ounces or something. You shake it down. Yeah, no, you really just choke it down. You get used to the taste after a while. Sure. It's kinda like, yeah, whatever. I got used to the taste cause I was like, the benefits of it, I felt so freaking good and I still do. And so anytime I'm starting to feel like sort of sluggish or like going through some health stuff, I always, I crank up out the celery juice just cause I can't do it like all the time. I don't, I don't know, I just can't, I just can't do it. I just get bored with it. So the mud water. Um, the taste is definitely horrible.

Laura:

It sounded like it, well, like the way they describe it, of course, on the container was like, something like hot. It tastes like hot chocolate with hints.

Katy:

Whoa. That's what I was gonna say. You and I was like, you really got it. You really gotta add some stuff to it. So they, they give you like a little recipe book for in there of like different ways to drink it. The best one that I found, which is put it like in a smoothie, which for me it's anything, put it, just hide the taste. Yeah, just hide the taste. Put it that, hide the taste, put that crap in a smoothie and just mash it up and it'll be so much better.

Laura:

Seriously, on the package it was saying it's like chai tea with hints of cocoa, and I'm like, but what rolled on the ground, it's very, cause we're also talking about mushrooms.

Katy:

Okay. So like mushrooms tastes earthy. Like you can't get around that. And that's what this mud water is definitely very earthy, but there are ways to make it so that it's not so potent. For me though, the, it's the smell, like the taste I can, I can do the taste, I can do, but the smell is a bit overwhelming. And so that for me was, was more of the struggle. Celery juice. I can just stomach it down, chug it, and then I'm fine, whatever. But this was a whole other sensory experience. Yeah. I j I just, I'm I, my nose, I listen, I have asthma and so I am sensitive to smells, but more like perfumes and everything like that. and I know I've talked about this on the show, but when I got pregnant I became like a coonhound, like I don't know what happened, but my nose I remember at the zoo and there was like a funnel cake thing like way on the other side of the zoo. And I took one step outside and I'm like, funnel cake. And it was on the other side of a 33 acre zoo. And I could smell it like I, and still ever since then, my sense of smell. insanely powerful, and so smells just get to me. Yeah. Yeah. And the mud water one was definitely it, but I will say like it did give you the results. So if you can get over the, that's kind of cool.

Laura:

Yeah. Because yeah, I hate being a slave to caffeine. I mean, I definitely too am at this point. I'll get headaches if I

Katy:

don't. Yeah, no. And me too, and that's why I'm always looking for, for an alternative for stuff like that. And so, yeah, definitely mud water. It was a good. I, I would, I still have a bunch of it over there. And in the company itself, I mean like they s you the recipe book, they send you the little, um, frother to like, to make sure it's stirred. Cuz they even say, they're like, you gotta stir it and you gotta make sure it stays stirred kind of thing. Because yeah, once it's settles and it, then you just have all that sediment Dregs, yeah. At the bottom. And, but no, but it, it was good. It did, definitely did what it said. It's just, it's that taste, man. I just couldn't. I could mask the taste, but the smell was just too over. Interesting bearing for me. It is. It is one of those things where it's, yeah, it's just a lot. It's just very overwhelming. Huh. So that's my review. Okay, cool. Yeah. Not, not horrible. Didn't love it. Yeah. All righty. Um, speaking of love. Yeah. I will go.

Laura:

Yeah, I think so. Cuz I really think that most people think of love as starting in the brain. Yeah. So in this episode, since we're talking about how it can physically affect you, Katie and I are gonna split it up where Katie's gonna cover how it affects your brain, and I'm gonna cover how it affects your body.

Katy:

Yep. All right. So first off, I wanna give a shout out to one of the best books I've ever read. It's. Come as you are the surprising new signs of Sex, love, life, and love by Dr. Emily Kowski. It's such a

Laura:

great book title also.

Katy:

So come as your,

Laura:

and actually before we get started anymore do we need like an eight? Do we need a disclaimer? Is this we can house, we can biological.

Katy:

I didn't, I didn't go super crazy into anything. Okay. Yeah.

Laura:

No, I didn't go super crazy. But still, like for probably

Katy:

not a kid episode we could, yeah, we could put a disclaimer or we could just mark it as explicit. Yeah. Yeah's not a big deal. But that book, the book come as you are. It is so good. I feel like every woman should read it and honestly every man, because it really goes into the science behind sex and, and a lot of different things and, and why. Uh, just women differ, differ in sex how you know, and understanding that cuz some people are more I forget the terms, but it's like they're spontaneous and then there's reactive. And I know those aren't the actual terms, but there's some people that can just beat. just like sex can just pop into their head and that's what turns them on and they're just like ready to go. Yeah. And then there's other people that they don't think about sex all the time. And so those are the people that typically get coined. What the term? Oh, they have a low sex drive, but it's not that at all. It's that they need. To have like physical, like somebody start Yeah. So it has to be going and then they're like, oh yeah, let's do sex. And so like understanding other people and how they think can, can really be beneficial within relationships and stuff. But the book come as You Are and she's such a good author and she takes such a complex topic and simplifies it. That's such a good title. Yeah. But she simplifies it in a. Like understandable language that anybody can read. So yeah, so come as you are. So anyway, so I just wanted to give a shout out to that book cuz a little bit of the information that came in from this is from there, but it, yeah, just such a good book.

Laura:

And then of course also being in, we're talking about being in love and we're talking about like romantic. Love not cuz there's so many different kinds of love. There's loving your kids, there's loving, you know, well, what we're talking about, like Yeah. Although it's, there's

Katy:

similarities of course. Yes. I was gonna say, yeah. Because a lot of what I'm gonna talk about there are over, like overlaps between a lot of

Laura:

this stuff. Mine isn't as much. It affects your body less so with other types of love. Yeah. Some, there's some overlap. Yeah. But like the, the romantic love affects your body a little

Katy:

differently. Well, Uh,

Laura:

one Hope. Dear God.

Katy:

All right, so before we dive into the topic of love and sex, let's first take a look at the human brain. The brain is a very complex organ that controls everything We do think and feel. While it may make up just 2% of our body weight, it uses up to 20% of our energy that our body produces. Yeah, the

Laura:

hog. All the

Katy:

calories for your brain. Yeah, just an energy hug. It's divided into seven, seven different functional regions, each with its own specialized functions. These sections of the brain lobes are the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobes, cerebellum, and the brain stem. The frontal lobe is located at the front of the brain, is responsible for decision making, problem solving, and controlling movement. Parietal,

Laura:

and I know we kind of, we hit on this too when we did our brains episode.

Katy:

Yeah. Like very briefly. Yeah, we did. It's located the top back of the brain. It's responsible for processing sensory information, such as touch and temperature. Occipital lobe is located in the back of the brain, responsible for processing visual information and interpreting what we see. The temporal lobe located on the side of the brain is responsible for processing auditory information and our senses of hearing. This is the limbic system, which includes the amygdala, and the hippocampus is responsible for processing emotions and memories. The basal ganglia located deep in the brain controls, movement and coordination. Then there's the brainstem located between the spinal cord and the brain controls automatic functions such as breathing and heart rate. So there's just like a lot of different parts and pieces of the brain. Everything controls everything, but then you need multiple parts of your brain for simple functions and, and yeah, and love is def and everything that comes with it is definitely one of those. So let's talk about the. the, the importance of, yes, there are the different areas and locations, but then what's happening between those to give you the response. Because remember this is, we're gonna have one of those crisis moments here again.

Laura:

Yeah. I was already starting on redoing, researching this episode because it just reminds you that you're simply a brain. Yeah, we're just

Katy:

a brain. It's so meta. Yeah. We're just a bunch of this neurotransmitters, hormones. I don't like, we're good, like electrical firing. Like we're not really anything except that. So a lot of what our controls, our brain is neurotransmitters and hormones which are the basically just the chemical messengers in the brain that help regulate our thoughts, feelings, and actions, which is just insane how we go from hormones and stuff. Just moving through our. and that gives us everything that literally gives us everything between that logic. Yeah,

just

Laura:

your perception, your thoughts,

Katy:

your, all of it. Yeah. Crazy. Okay, here we go. Look, we gotta move on. Before Laura and I spiral, um, So neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit signals from one neuron to another, allowing for communication between different parts of the brain and the rest of the body. Some common neuro neurotransmitters include dopamine, which involve, which involve in regulating mood and pleasure, and serotonin, which is involved in regulating mood, appetite, and sleep. I bo

Laura:

both the best.

Katy:

Both are the best, yeah. Right Now, for some people, these neurotransmitters move around just fine. But for those of us who prefer a real party in this life, uh, these neurotransmitters do not move the way they should. And this leads to a variety of brain BA based differences, including my favorite, my Pal, my Ride, or. adhd,

Laura:

yepper. And you guys, if you need to learn more about the, you know, neurotransmitters and how they affect mental health, lynch us into our brains episode, which was, uh, we did a

Katy:

while ago. Yeah.

Laura:

Yeah. Last fall. Before fall before. I think

Katy:

it's last. Yeah. Yeah. It was fall before of 21. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It was like season. But go back. Did we

Laura:

talk about a ADHD and O OC D and how your

Katy:

neurotransmitters work? Oh, for, for, for specifically to those, yeah. To those two. Yeah. So anyway, so yeah. Sometimes it just doesn't flow quite right. So neurotransmitters, the second thing that comes into play within our brain are hormones. Hormones are also chemical messengers that are produced by the endocrine gland and then circulate throughout the body to affect different organs and tissues. Some hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline are produced in response to stress and to help regulate the body's response to it, which I found. I've read this fascinating thing. I think, I don't remember if I talked about the book yet. the body keeps score. So it, it goes into, I didn't know that. Like people who suffer are who? I can't tell if that's upstairs or not, that people who have ptsd the re they can actually have almost like autoimmune disease responses because your, the cortisol levels are so high during your. whatever it is, whatever that trauma is, is so high that after the event plummets. and because cortisol helps an anti-inflammatory responses. Oh yeah. And so it keeps you anti-inflammatory whenever you then get out of that trauma response and it doesn't, it can't. That makes sense. Get up that high. Then your body and your blood work, everything can actually mimic an autoimmune disease, which is neat. It's really just

Laura:

coming down from a panic

Katy:

attack. Well, long, essentially. Like long term. Long term. Long term se like untreated PTSD can actually lead to these severe me. What's mimicking severe medical conditions? Yeah, so Body Keeps Score fascinating book. So anyway so there are other hormones such as oxytocin and fasfa, serin, which are involved in regulating social bonding and sexual behavior by affecting our thoughts and emotions, neurotransmitters and hormones. I mean, they're the, they are the critical role behavior and it's like

Laura:

It's the chemical cocktail. Yeah. Like how much of what makes you act different? Yeah.

Katy:

Yeah. And you have to have a little bit of everything and you're gonna have a little bit of everything depending on what's going on. So love like a lot of other emotions. It's complex process of course, that involves several different parts and regions of our. And a variety of chemicals or hormones. Yeah. One of the key chemicals that involved in love is a neurotransmitter that I just mentioned, dopamine. So this neurotransmitter plays a role in our reward and motivation system. When we fall in love, our brain releases a surge of dopamine, giving a rush of positive feeling and reinforcing our desire to spend time with the person. And that's not just with love either. Anytime like you meet a friend that you have something to cobble with. It's a dopamine. Again, why do you think me or anybody else, adhd? We get so excited when we find new friends. It's a dopamine hit. It's better than drugs, so yeah,

Laura:

don't, it's the best feeling. It is. Of course. Anybody who's ever gotten a new friend or fallen in love,

Katy:

you're feeling, yeah, it's, you're really pump and it's the dopamine. So don't do drugs due to dopamine. And so love and all is great. Sex is where it's at. And in the same way that dopamine is a hit, when we're falling in love, talk about the dopamine hit whenever you're having sex. It is like tenfold. And so anytime humans do something new, a novel, it's like it floods it even more. And so if you're looking for that dopamine hit, just keep your life spicy. Something new. Yeah, try something new. And so it's like a double whammy cuz it's like I could try a new. or you could try like a bunch of new fun sex and it'll, you know what I mean? And it like takes it like that much more cuz it's almost like doubling on itself. Yeah, so that's interesting. So it's just like a huge, a huge hit. And that's why like people, whenever you are, well I'll go ahead and finish this up. So in 2005, uh, I think can't remember what the university. but they led a research team that published a groundbreaking study that included the first functional MRI and F MRI images of the brain of individuals who were starting out or who were like, act like in love. Like, yeah, you could ask'em questions. They were definitely in love. It wasn't just like a crush or anything like, So this team analyze of researchers analyzed 2,500 brain scans of college students who viewed pictures of someone special to them and compared the scan to ones taken when the students looked at pictures of acquaintances. Photos of people they romantically love cause a participant's brain to become active in regions rich with dopamine. Which is any, any place makes sense in there that Yeah. The feel good, you're feeling pleasure looking? Yep. Yeah. Two of the brain regions that showed activity in the FM r i scans were the cadre nucleus, which is a region associated with reward, detection and expectation and the integration of sensory experiences under social behav. and the ventral tag menta teec area, which is associated with pleasure, focus, attention, and the motivation to pursue and acquire rewards. So, I mean, it is like once you're there, you're like, I need to keep coming. Keep the dopamine flowing So another important chemical involved in love is oxytocin, also known as the cuddle hormone. Yeah, that's the one that mamas get. Yep. So oxytocin is released during physical touch and intimacy, promoting feelings of trust and bonding between partners. When your brain releases dopamine, your serotonin levels increase, and then oxytocin is produced. So it's like it needs to happen in a couple stages. So this causes you to feel a surge of positive emotions. Oxytocin has a different role in males and females beyond just. Produced when there's a bond with one another in females, oxytocin triggers labor and the release of breast milk as well as uterine contractions while giving birth among a lot of other baby related things in males. Oxytocin helps to move sperm. I mean, it does some other things, but essentially that's, yeah. Make you wanna cuddle. That's, and, and, but I mean, from an evolutionary standpoint, that's why like cuddling is, I don't wanna say it's like, pregame? Well, no, no, no, no. Not even that. Like, uh, speaking from like an evolutionary term, like cuddling is, is newer. Whereas like if you look like primitive, our brain is like oxytocin, boom, I need to make a baby. And the male's like, boom, I need to move my sperm. And so like primi, like that is the reaction and that is, What happened? So, researchers in one, in a study in 2012 found that couples in the first stages of romantic attachment had significantly higher levels of oxytocin. Then they're unattached counterparts, which makes sense if your body is releasing a bunch of dopamine because you're excited with the physical touch and everything during the first part of the relationship. And they were studying like the oxytocin. Yeah, the different phases of love and like the different levels of oxytocin. Oxytocin is tied to more than just new love. It's also released storing sexual activity and linked to the intensity of orgasms, which I didn't know that either. All right, so finally the last hormone we're gonna talk about is norepinephrine. This hormone increases our focus and attention helping us to stay alert and tuned into our partner. High levels of dopamine and a related hormone norepinephrine are released during attraction. These chemicals make us giddy, energetic, in euphoric, even leading to decreased appetite and insomnia. which means like you become obsessive. Yeah, you can become obsessive. And so if you have that little bit of an unbalance you, it can, if you have too much, it can actually be bad. Nor Andra may stay similar because it does play a large role in our flight or flight, flight or flight response, which kicks into high gear when we're stressed and keeps us alert. So it's like the same thing, it's just serving a different purpose. So it's still keeping us alert and, you know, prioritizing a, like focusing on that person, but it's serving a very, very different.

Laura:

Yeah. It's not danger, it's something else. Yeah.

Katy:

Same response. Yep. So what happens in the brain? I just wanna talk real quick about what happens in the brain itself whenever we have sex. Because even though it's all those things that I just talked about, all those chemicals and whatnot are happening. There's like specifically during sex, our brain, you know, releases all the chemicals and hormone. However, the parts of the brain which are active during sex are different from the areas of the brain that are active in our normal day-to-day. It's like almost like those untouched, like corners, right? Or, or what ha lights up during sex. So the limbic system, a more primitive region of the brain that's responsible for phys physical drives and elements of emotional processing activates during sex, other parts of the cerebral cortex. Govern higher reasoning, however, those actually shut down. Yeah. And so as a consequence, the sexual act itself is driven more by instinct and emotion than rational thought. Makes sense. So, yeah, it is just like in the moment, gotta have it, gotta do it now. And the brain during sex looks very different in men than women, which I mean, everybody knows, but it's like, figured that. Yeah. Do you know? Yeah. So two specific areas of the brain. Seem to shut off first during Sex for Women one region, which involves social judgments and awareness, which is kind of like where the saying like love is blind can come from because it's like, yeah. You know, you love'em and it just kind of shuts off, or you're willing to not notice. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other area is linked to self-awareness and self inhibitions, which have also been found to deactivate in female brains resulting in an out of body like experience during sex. Okay. Yeah. And that whole experience, that actually is what helps women to orgasm. So it's basically like women. I don't like just so over men at this point in our evolutionary chain that we're just like like coming out of body experience. I just having had a body experience to, to orgasm here because, as men let me find it here, but it was also talking about that men produce an insane amount of a certain chemical within their brain, and that's why they actually get sleepy after. And like for a little tired. Yeah, like they, it's just so much, they're just like, okay, let's gonna sleep now. So anyway. Yeah. So I do remember that for the male one it was like more of the decision making sides of their brains, like sections and so it was more decision making, more of the impulse control. Like those ones are just like, Nope, let's down. And cuz males are like, they are typically historically more of this spontaneous one and stuff than, than. Female. I mean, biologically for the most part. I d I've read one and I don't remember where it was that was actually saying that because of the chemicals that are released, women get the rap all the time as we're actually, we're the more emotional ones. And that's actually not true. Chemically speaking, males actually produce way more of these different things during sex and. in theory then should show that males actually are more emotional about sex. It's just they're not talking about it or they're just not saying it. Gotcha. Um, but yes, they're producing much, much higher level. So it was really interesting. So in a very, very short brief nutshell, that's sex in the brain. That's burden on love. Yeah.

Laura:

Wow. That's cool. Yeah. Okay. So your body, of course, like. It's doing a lot of different things but it's very much dependent on the stage of love that you are in. Are you falling in love? Have you been in love a long time? depending on your answer, that's what your body's doing. So at the beginning, falling in love which is such a good term for it, because it's causing the same reaction as jumping out of a plane or fighting a bear. Okay, So when you are falling in love, your body feels like it's falling. And so it has a fight or flight response as Katie had mentioned. So that. You know, if anybody's fallen in love, who's listening, sweaty palms, racing, heart flesh, cheeks, like your body is freaking out. Even though it's a good thing, it's still having that fight or flight response because it's new, exciting, scary, all at the same time. Yeah, everything together so that like your autonomic system is like doing its thing. So sweaty, palms racing, heart flushed face, also dilated pupils, and a lot of. about dilated pupils because some people say that you can. How in love with someone, like how in love someone is by how dilated their pupils are when they're

Katy:

talking to you. Yeah, and there's just like, there's other things too though that are like body mimicking, like psychologically, like people who are close, who are in love, they will like without. Knowing it will mimic each other's, like their movements and mannerisms. Yeah. Yeah. Everything.

Laura:

Yeah. Well, so the, the dilated pupil thing is there's some truth to it, but not you can't look at somebody and look at their pupils and be like, love. Yeah, it's love. Yeah. What it is, is that dilated pupils do correlate strongly with arousal and a lot of men, other mental states. And it's insanely precise. I had no idea about this entire branch of science, which is called pupil geometry um, the youtry pupil geometry, which is people who study pupils. Pupil movements, yeah. Um, it is so niche, so precise of a sci, like basically these scientists. almost read a human mind that's crazy by the size of the dilation of the pupils. So not talking about love, but talking about. Like the guy who was writing this article was talking about how, let's say he gives someone a math problem. When you are concentrating on something, your pupils dilate cuz you wanna be taking in more information. Yeah, yeah. The harder the problem, the more your pupils dilate. Interesting.

Katy:

So like, my problem more, my pupils are always so big All through school. Yeah, yeah. Just big black eyes and

Laura:

So he, he knew how, how difficult something was, but, and using like all sorts of advanced imagery and like measure. He could track pupil movements from people, but it is not, it is not a mindreading ability to the average person because there's lots of reasons why your pupils can be dilated. Oh yeah. Besides your emotional state. It can be the light, it can be your emotional state. It can be lots of things. So don't think you can go out there and read people's pupils. What a tongue poster. Read pup's. Pupils, Pupil geometry is a thing and it can tell psychologists a lot in particular. Interesting. They're actually not sure why this happens as far as like it makes sense that your pupils dilate for light. Okay. And I suppose it makes a little sense too why they dilate when you're concentrating, cuz you're trying to take in more, but they're still not exactly sure. Exactly. Sure why. Hmm. Doctors. Or at least one doctor mentioned viewing it as a side effect of our nervous system, trying to process something important. It's like this is important. Open, wider I'm like, which is such a funny like thing for your life. That's what she said. this is so important. Open, wider. That's what your pupils, that's what your eyes are saying. Um. So as soon as a fight or flight response happens, dilation as soon as you become aroused. Dilation. Wait, you didn't do the sound

Katy:

this time. Oh yeah.

Laura:

Um, another thing that happens a lot in particular in the early stages of love is the butterflies in your stomach. People feel this also, not just for love. Could also be because you're nervous again, fight or flight.

Katy:

But, but yeah, I, I, I've came across that though, and that's actually, that's a feeling in your head that Zach has nothing. What I thought was there. Oh, there actually is. Oh, is there there something? It's both. Apparently. It's both. Okay. Cuz I found that it had more to do with your brain than what it had like in your actual. Yeah,

Laura:

I was tracking down why you actually feel it down there. Interesting. So apparently it's due to the activation of your vagus nerve, your vaus nerve. Oh, that, oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Basically your whole brain. Yeah. Like it's from the, all the way from the top to the bottom and it controls all of your like basic functions. So. it controls all the automatic stuff in your body, including gut stuff like your digestion. Yes. Yep. When you become nervous or aroused, this nerve is stimulated and you feel that down there because the, that nerve, it's a fight or flight response. So let's say you're out there and you see a bear and you're like, I, I'm gonna have to fight this. Bear your body. All it's eggs in the fight or flight basket by sending all your blood to your extremities and away from your digestion and away from your, you know, autoimmune. Like all that, it's like basic functions only. So all the blood immediately leaves your stomach area, which means those vessels constrict very quickly and your muscles contract and that muscle contraction, vessel constriction is what you're feeling. This is the butterfly. So it's really just your blood's all going to extremities. Yeah. Right.

Katy:

just really red hands. Yeah. Yeah.

Laura:

So in the first year, as many of us know, you're pretty stressed out about what the other person's thinking and are you doing the right thing and are you making the right move and all of this stuff. So in your first year, cortisol, as Katie mentioned, is the, is a stress hormone. Cortisol is very high. Yep. after that they found that it typically drops back down to pretty normal levels. Long term though, love seems to reduce anxiety. Yeah. Yep.

Katy:

I found the same thing. Um,

Laura:

so one study was looking at your H P A, which is a, it's like a, it's like a trigger reaction of your hypothalamus, pituitary adrenal gland. So it's all the hormone stuff. Mm-hmm. and that is activated in response to stress. So they found that those people that were in love had lower levels of anxiety, which may have been brought about by physiological changes to that H p A area. So like it can maybe actually like long-term affect your body. Yeah, yeah. Um, that makes sense. And how, how happy they were mattered.

Katy:

That's what I was just gonna

Laura:

say, just because you were married 30 years doesn't mean that it had affected you had to be happily married, 30. In order for your stress to be reduced. And what I also was finding, and which totally makes sense and I've never thought about and I, again, I don't wanna like ruin love for myself, but like why do humans love one theory kind of Is that love counteracts chronic stress? It does, yeah. Okay. So we're animals. We are stressed a lot. A lot stresses us. It's bad for our bodies to be stressed. Stress does terrible things for our bodies like inflammation. And you know, our immune system goes away and our digestive is wrecked and our sleep. And so our body is like, can't, can't handle this long term. How do I fix it? I go, I, I have to love. Which is a beautiful thing. Yeah. But also makes it very simplified and Yeah. In the beginning, love induces stress. Our hormones are like flood, flood you, and then you overcome that. It actually encourages you to become more aroused and to become more social, thereby overcoming that new love feeling and establishing stable love. So like your body doesn't like that first couple stages. It needs you to fall. It needs you to be in love. Yeah. So it is going to pump as many hormones through your body as it can in order to lower your levels of stress and put you back on an even keel. Again, just a cool machine. Like

Katy:

our bodies are. Yeah. It, it knows what it needs, what it knows what it needs to do, what it should be. It just

Laura:

wants, everybody just wants to be chill. Yeah. All your body wants is to do normal, the least possible, and not

Katy:

stress. Yeah. please just give me

Laura:

easy, easy emotions. Yeah. It's kind of like, uh, we have, I don't probably mentioned it before, but how like. When people see cute things and they need to smash something to regulate?

Katy:

I say that at work all the time and everybody, and I, I've sent them so many articles and I still, they still make fun of me about it because yeah, you need to regulate. You see something so cute. Most people are like, it's the pinching and everything I. Some people just wanna squish. Yeah, squish it or put or punch it. Like same thing, it's

Laura:

just your body's way of it needs to go back to normal. Yeah. So if you're up really high, you need to go really low to

Katy:

come back So if you see something super cute, you just gotta punch it square in the face. So

Laura:

if you're really, really stressed, You go the exact opposite way and become really, really aroused and that will even you back

Katy:

out. Listen, I mean, I am, can I tell people all the time, for me that is the biggest stress release lever is sex. And everybody's like, I don't know, does before. No, it does. Like it is, it's a hundred percent a

Laura:

stress relief. Yeah. And then final, or is it? Two more things. One, it can lower your blood pressure in the long term. So again, in the beginning, racing heart, like fight or flight stuff. But once you become more like stable studies show that married couples have a lower blood pressure than unmarried couples, which in turn interesting. A lower risk of cardiovascular disease. So yeah, it's, it's just that reduced anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. Reduced blood. Like it probably also. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot going on there psychologically and physiologically.

Katy:

Well, yeah, cuz it's all tied together. Just hormones and electrical firings.

Laura:

Right, because I'm thinking like, you know, perhaps they're less stressed because you know you have a part apart. Yeah, yeah.

Katy:

Like somebody else are alive. You're not

Laura:

in it alone. Yeah. Yeah. And then finally they've interest Cool, cool enough have found that both heart and breathing can synchronize in couple. you have to be in close proximity. Can't be across the room. Your heart's not gonna align with your spouse in the house. um, align

Katy:

with your spouse in the house. Yeah.

Laura:

They have found that, I mean, human beings in general do this a lot actually. Some other study was saying like, I've read that parents do it with their kids or like even people who sleep together in the same bed doesn't even matter If you're related, you'll sync up. Yeah. Um, which is crazy.

Katy:

But listen, I'm still over that. Women's Shark Week sync up, so I mean, yeah.

Laura:

So breathing and heart rate. I can too. Multiple studies have verified this, especially if a couple is sitting next to each other, very close proximity. Typically things are going to regulate so that you're doing things at the same time. Your body just

Katy:

likes to be in sync. Yeah. Oh, makes. Yeah.

Laura:

So that's how your body's affected. I mean, besides all the other stuff that we, a lot of us already know about with like other body responses to arousal, This is like, this is the, I feel like this is like the physical stuff that the sciencey, we don't think about

Katy:

as much. Yeah. The sciencey stuff. The stuff, yeah. All right, everybody, well go ahead and follow us and talk with us on Twitter and then make sure you check us out on Patreon and support us there cuz it'll help us to bring guests and just keep doing this stuff and upgrade our equipment or just, I don't know. Anything and everything.

Laura:

Yeah. And we are also, if you've seen on our Twitter page, we are looking for someone to join our team.

Katy:

Please help us. Kim got a

Laura:

new job, so she's not being able to be as much of an active member of the team anymore. So we would love to have someone else. Anybody with any skills might not as active. Not at

Katy:

all. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. By not as active, we. All. We love you, Kim. But yeah, and I'm happy. We're both obviously

Laura:

happy for my gosh. Yeah. What a great opportunity for her. Right. So, but we also need somebody to help keep us on track or take any other admin stuff or anything, you know, however much time you've got will take what you can give us. So please reach out to us, any listeners, if you're interested. We

Katy:

don't wanna sound desperate, but, but yeah, just somebody else to help us out. We're a lot of fun. We're a lot of fun, I promise. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Laura:

And we're not, we don't need you to do, we. We're not asking you to write outlines or anything. No, we do all that one. See somebody, even if somebody can just poke us to be like, yo, write the outline. Yeah. that's, that's the big thing for me. Right? I hope you all know a little bit more about how love affects both our brains and our bodies, and now that you know probably more than you wanted to know, your curiosity should be peaked and hopefully you care just a little bit more. Join us next week.