Date: Fri 16-Jan-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

health-love

Full Text:

A "LOVE HIGH" RELEASES VARIOUS CHEMICALS IN THE BODY

(AP) The love buzz: a natural high.

The chemical charge you experience when you're in love is so addictive, wrote

Barrie Gillies in an article in the current issue of Cosmopolitan , it should

practically be outlawed.

"When you are infatuated, various chemicals, including dopamine, are released

in your brain that work very much like amphetamines," explains Helen Fisher,

PhD, an anthropologist and author of Anatomy of Love. "Lovers have all this

extra energy they can stay awake all night without feeling the least bit tired

the next day, they lose weight, they feel optimistic, giddy and full of life.

They're high on natural speed."

But of course, nature would never just hand over a high without some sort of

evolutionary hook: Humans are hardwired to make more humans. "Dopamine helps

us choose between potential mates and gives us a heightened response to one

specific individual," continues Fisher.

"Studies show that attachment and feelings of closeness are essential to

survival," says Steve Dubovsky, professor of psychiatry and medicine at the

University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. "Mutually supportive

interaction helps regulate your own physiology. When we have love in our

lives, we get sick less frequently. We recover more quickly from illness. In

other words, we need affection to be healthy human beings. It's really a basic

need, like water and food."

This infatuation or passionate stage of love typically lasts between 18 months

and three years. Then you and your partner move into the next stage of love -

attachment - and your biochemistry also changes. "Love is still a wonderful

thing, but it feels very different," explains Deborah Blum, author of Sex on

the Brain. "You're comfortable and calm and secure in each other's company,

and you're ready to have a stable relationship."

Consider the benefits of early love. There is a very healthy boost to

self-confidence, for one. "When you're in love," says marriage and family

therapist Sharyn Hillyer, "you're spending a lot of time with someone who

accepts who you are and loves you for that, and this, in turn, helps you see

yourself as capable, beautiful, loving, and good."

"During the initial stages of love, when our brains and bodies are flooded

with monoamines, our pupils dilate, making us look more attractive," explains

James H. Fallon, professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of

California at Irvine. "These chemicals also cause our hearts to pump harder,

so people in love become flushed in the face and on the chest and will sweat

more so they appear to be glowing and healthy. The oil glands in the hair are

also triggered, which gives hair extra shine."

Intimacy - the ability to form close caring attachments - provides a buffer

against the stress in our lives and is one of the key components to staying

healthy.

"While any type of support is better than no support there's some suggestion

from new noteworthy research that a well-functioning marriage has the most

powerful buffer effect against stress - better than close friends and family,"

says Wayne Sotile, director of psychological services at Wake Forest

University Cardiac Rehabilitation Program.

When people are in loving relationships, they're more motivated to make

healthy changes in their diet and exercise programs, to drink less alcohol,

stop smoking, even get regular medical checkups.

"We're not sure," Sotile says, "but what probably happens is that the

endorphins released when we're getting love calm down our whole physiology and

allow our immune system to recover."