What’s Love Got To Do With It?--Kezia

Love. A word that seems so straightforward to say, yet so tough to explain as a concept. What exactly is this “warm squishiness” feeling inside, and why can we feel love differently, for let’s say, a family member versus a significant other? A Harvard Gazette article covered a study where over 6,600 pages of search results appeared in a database just for the word “love”. This led the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct 18 clinical trials to uncover the “layered meanings”. Through the studies, the Institute discovered that though “ not normally considered an intestinal ailment, love is often described as an illness, and the smitten as lovesick.” Love has the ability to control our mind and body by increasing the neurotransmitter dopamine to the brain. Dopamine helps regulate emotional responses, often times correlating with the feeling of sudden happiness. So, the “high” one feels after seeing someone special is merely a chemical reaction in response to their body’s idea of pleasure. This feeling attracts us to the same people who emit it. Though, Richard Schwartz , associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and a consultant to McLean and Massachusetts General (MGH) hospitals, claims that there are different phases of love that contribute to a person’s overall feeling towards someone. Serotonin, another neurotransmitter responsible for regulating happiness in one’s body, is said to be accountable for the “crazy” and “obsessive” feelings in the beginning of a relationship. As the relationship grows, so does the levels of oxytocin, a neurotransmitter that stimulates a milder

feeling of love. Schwartz claims that high levels of oxytocin “helps cement bonds, raise immune function, and begin to confer the health benefits of the two”. Although not recognized as one, love can seem like a drug to one experiencing all the varying neurotransmitters’ effects on the mind and body.
When writer Aditi Nair asked 10 people what love meant to them, the answers varied from those in a relationship to those who are single. Couples who have been together for a year or more claimed love is patience and equality, essentially the idea of learning to accept the other’s flaws. The single participants answered that love to them was merely respect and security, which they could find in friends and family. I then began to ponder the true attributes of love and what differentiates Eros, romantic love, from Philia, affectionate love. The ancient Greeks studied the idea of love and attempted to classify them into eight different types based on the relationship. Eros, although passionate, was deemed a dangerous form of love, often forcing the person to act impulsively in the name of desire. Those in a romantic relationship are undergoing Eros and the idea of physical, passionate love. The different love one feels towards friends and/or family is classified as Philia love. Unlike Eros, which the Greeks considered as fiery love, Philia represents the affection between “equals” and beings who are close. Philia works by being a form of “platonic” love, or love without sexual desire, thus describing the relationship between family and friends.
Although love is often connected with the idea of intimacy, the Greeks proved that there are different forms of love for each situation. Famous philosopher, Plato, asserted that physical attraction doesn’t always have to be a requirement when feeling love. The same neurotransmitters that deliver the feeling of happiness when in contact with a partner is the

equivalent to the feeling of safety we feel around the ones we love. For, the denotative definition of love is the “intense feeling of deep affection,” which I believe we, as humans, require to truly experience and enjoy life. 

Powell, Alvin. “Scientists Find a Few Surprises in Their Study of Love.” Harvard Gazette , Harvard Gazette, 23 Jan. 2019, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/02/scientists-find-a-few-surprises-in-their-study-of-lo ve/.
Morgan, Carol. “Learn the Different Types of Love (and Better Understand Your Partner).” Lifehack , Lifehack, 7 Nov. 2018, www.lifehack.org/816195/types-of-love.