Have you ever wonder why you fall in and out of love? It is a result of a biochemical phenomenon. Falling in love is caused by four hormones.

Dopamine: This hormone increases your focus, motivation and memory. It also increases your sense of pleasure, enjoyment and desire.

Oxytocin: This hormone is known as the love hormone and is commonly released during sexual activity. But it also increases your generosity, trust and sense of bonding.

Serotonin: This hormone is known as the happiness hormone. It affects your mood and impacts your whole body. When you are attracted to another person, your body releases dopamine, which in turn increases the serotonin levels in your body, making you happier.

Endorphins: This hormone is the body’s pain killer. Endorphins are released during sexual activity and are natural stress relievers. This hormone also makes you laugh and let you relax more.

When you are falling in love, you experience a cocktail of these hormones.

So why do we fall out of love? This is because the opposite biochemical process is taking place. And there are two hormones central to this process. These hormones are cortisol and adrenaline. They are released when you surprised, shocked or fearing something.

Most breakups come as a surprise to at least one party. Usually, something happened that forces one of the invested parties to break it up.

Cortisol and adrenaline increase your anxiety and frightens you. This makes you intolerant, irritable, uncreative and critical. It eventually leads to memory impairment and bad decisions. An overload of cortisol and adrenaline leads to a lack of trust and eminent decline in a relationship. This leads to memory impairment, so we cannot remember anything good in a relationship after the breakup.

Falling out of love is caused by an overload of cortisol and adrenaline. So what is the lesson here? Do not feed the negativity. During a breakup or a rocky patch in your relationship, try to create a safe space where all parties can communicate openly and express their feelings of hurt and disappointment. But, this does not mean, because you are communicating, that the relationship will be saved. Suppose all invested parties cannot resolve their issues. In that case, the breakup will at least be not as emotionally draining on all parties. [JC – 26 Feb 21]