VALENTINE BLUES: See what happens to your body when you fall in love!

… some chemical changes are going on

This is not for those who do not believe in the four-letter word, love. It’s not for those who are not sharing with other millions of lovers all over the world today, the joy of valentine. It’s not for those who are yet to meet their ‘prince charming’ or ‘queen’ either.
Only those who have found love will understand the feelings. They are the ones who are experiencing some ‘funny feelings’ during this valentine period. Don’t worry if at that moment you met that attractive person, you suddenly began to feel ‘sick’ with your stomach churning, your legs going weak (if you’re a woman) and a dozen other reactions suddenly began to take place within your body. Experts say your body is only adjusting itself to the new excitement you’re just facing.
For, when a man loves a woman, a great deal of changes- chemical changes- are bound to occur within the body; setting the lovers literarily ‘on fire’.
Said Dr. Joe Herbert, a neuro-endocrinologist at the Cambridge University, United Kingdom of the numerous changes that take place during that moment when you find someone attractive to you:
“Your adrenal glands pump adrenalin into your bloodstream, you breathe more deeply to oxygenerate more blood, your heart speeds up to pump more blood, the vessels in your muscles dillate to allow more blood through thereby increasing muscle efficiency, your complexion pales a s blood is directed away from the body surface and towards the vital organs, your digestive system slows down allowing the blood to be used in more immediately important areas and so on”.
According to the experts, these auwwtomatic bodily responses are controlled by the autonomic nervous system. It switches them on as soon as the cortex, the part of the brain involved in conscious thought decides an aroused response is necessary.
“When the body becomes aroused”, says Dr. Herbert, “everything goes up at once- the heart speeds up, the gut stops working and when the heart speeds up, the pupils of the eyes dilate (because it is the same nerve that controls the eye and the heart)”.
With this of course, you can easily tell if someone finds you attractive during those ‘magic moments’. You will notice that his or her pupils are dilated.
Also, apart from the rapid heartbeats and fast breathing, some may notice that their palms are covered in sweat. Experts say this is the body’s way of cooling the system which has been set ‘on fire’ by the whirlwinds of activities going on.
But this is not all. Those sweet feelings you get- like you’re in the cloudswhen you meet that special person are actually as a result of some chemical changes going on in your body at that time.
According to the experts, that moment you fall in love, some substances like phenylethamine are produced to make you feel real high. Experts liken phenylethamine and such other chemicals to some hard drugs because they are equally addictive and may even have some serious sideeffects when they are no longer produced.
Dr. Michael Liebowitz, an American psychologist told a London newspaper that while stimulants similar to amphetamine and cocaine account for lovers’ feelings of excitement, feelings of relaxation are brought on by chemicals related to narcotics such as heroin, opium and morphine and to tranquillisers such as librium and valium.
“These chemicals put lovers in a mellow mood, wiping out anxiety, loneliness and depression”.