The chemistry of missing someone

It goes without saying that there are few, if any, who don't experience this feeling. You can
miss people, places, feelings, many things if we list them all, but I think that it is safe to
assume the most intense this feeling gets is when it is related to someone dear. Whether it is a
lover, a friend or a family member and no matter the reasons that render us unable to be with
that person, the feeling is usually hard to bear. You feel like whatever you do is empty
without that person and you try to make the most of any contact.

It's hard to describe that feeling exactly, and it most likely feels different for each of us.
Nonetheless, there are some aspects that seem to be common. A feeling of weight upon you,
discomfort, you find yourself thinking about him or her and you immediately get sad because
you know they cannot be with you. You wish contact with even the smallest trace of them: the
sound of their voice, the way they laugh, something written by them, a text, their smell. You
imagine the way it feels to touch them, their breathing, the way they walk, the way they look
at you, the way they look at something else. Any detail about that person that you can
remember, you wish you could feel. There are a thousand and one things to miss about
someone.

The reasons are thought to be mostly chemical but we are far away from understanding the
processes behind our feelings completely. This topic leaves a lot of freedom, room to
presume, mostly because the human emotions are so difficult to explain via the chemistry of
our bodies. There are some things though, that are being understood more and more as time
passes.

An addiction of the heart

The main focus in this article is missing the person we love. To understand where our feelings
come from when we miss that special someone, we must first understand love while looking
through the lenses of neurochemistry.

I have been quite surprised to find out that brains of people who miss their partner react in a
similar way with the brains of those who go through withdrawal. Our brains have evolved in
such a way to guide us towards having a partner, and once we get there, makes it hard for us
to let go. This makes sense if you consider that humans need to stick together to thrive.
Mothers and babies (especially) require protection for a significant period of time. We are
driven to find a mate and remain together, to ensure the perpetuation of our species.

In a way, this behavior of our bodies, makes love an addiction, the one that no human (or very
few) can escape. Of course, this does not have to mean that love is a bad thing, it is just an
interesting comparison and it also gives an explanation for our propensity towards consuming
substances that lead to addiction. They take advantage of the way our brain's reward system
work. More about that in the sources.

A dance of chemicals

Neurotransmitters and hormones play a vital role in the process of love, from its emergence to
its persistence and different chemicals influence different stages of love. The hormones that
are involved in the process of love are estrogen, testosterone, vasopressin and oxytocin.
Neurotransmitters are represented by dopamine, epinephrine and serotonin. There is also a
very special growth factor, that has been in the spotlight through recent years: nerve growth
factor or NGF, a very important piece in the chemistry of love.

When we love someone, we go through different stages of love, and those stages involve
different chemicals. Our brain's reward system changes its behavior through this process
called love. If that person is no longer with us, we suddenly miss the source of our reward
system, we no longer have a reward and our body stops making certain chemicals. That is
what we truly feel. The reaction of our body when it is deprived of the substances that it was
used to. It is our body's way of making us go out there and fix the problem, so it can secrete
those chemicals again because your receptors, your whole organism liked them, now
something changed and your body doesn't like it.

The trilogy of love: lust, attraction, and attachment

The first major hormones we will talk about are estrogen and testosterone secreted by
ovaries and testicles, respectively. Their secretion is controlled by the hypothalamus, which in
turn is controlled via the nervous system. Shortly, you see (most often), smell, feel something,
your nervous system is stimulated, the hypothalamus starts working and its activity leads to
your bloodstream being filled with hormones that make you lustful, coming straight from
your genitals.

Those hormones influence the earliest phase of love, infatuation or lust. When you feel sexual
attraction to someone, especially when you don't know the person, estrogen and testosterone
are involved. They represent our urge to reproduce, to pass on our genes and assure the
survival of our species. It is a common misconception that testosterone influences men and
estrogen influences women, they actually work together and it is testosterone that has the
bigger impact on both sexes. Estrogen has been linked with high libido in women during
ovulation when it reaches a peak of secretion.

Next in line are the neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine (also
epinephrine, according to some sources) that control the attraction phase. Dopamine is
responsible for the reward system of our brains, with the good and the bad. As I said before,
love and drugs seem to stimulate the same areas of the brain. Also, dopamine can act
differently depending on dose, making people more aggressive and more prone to ignore
reason. Dopamine is the most important of the neurotransmitters involved in love and missing
someone. The others influence your behavior when in love but don't seem to be involved
when the loved one is not around. Just to mention their effects, serotonin affects mood and
appetite and it's secretion drops in love-struck individuals, leading to insomnia and loss of
appetite and norepinephrine which is involved in the fight-or-flight response, gets us
pumped up, stressed and nervous, a lovely combination on a date.

Last but not least, oxytocin and vasopressin in the attachment phase. This is the moment
when deep bonds are formed, when we develop intimacy with a loved one, and those
hormones hit hard and last long, explaining why it sometimes takes years to get past losing
someone really close to us and why some are never able to do it. Oxytocin has been found to
be secreted mostly during sexual intercourse, childbirth and breastfeeding, prompting strong
bonding with the partner and with the baby. Vasopressin is often found accompanying
oxytocin, I don't know if it has some particular effects. Oxytocin is also secreted during
activities that we undertake along our friends or family, in smaller doses (except for the
Lannisters).

It is very important to understand that separating love in three phases, each with its own
hormones doesn't mean that they don't interact. For example, sexual hormones are secreted all
throughout a relationship in different quantities prompting sexual intercourse at any phase of
the relationship but the interaction between partners during a long time make intimate
moments more meaningful, more than just lust.

The nerve growth factor was found in greater concentrations in the early stages of
relationships and then decreases after this initial phase. This growth factor is primarily
involved in the maintenance and proliferation of certain neuron types while stimulating the
secretion of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) a hormone related to stress. It also seems
to influence the immune system and ovulation.

Back to missing...

I presented, as shortly and concisely as I was able, the chemistry of love as I found it
explained in various papers. Our subject was the chemistry of missing someone, but we
couldn't understand why we miss a person unless we understand what that person means to us,
to our body, at a chemical level. Missing someone is mainly caused by the lack of stimulation
with which we were accustomed. Dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin and all the other
chemicals in our body make us feel good, in the same way, or to be more precise, through the
same pathways as drugs. I'm not saying this in a bad way, what I mean is that the first (love)
is a natural phenomenon that we evolved to experience in order to ensure survival. The
second is an abuse of the way our brain works, a way to get quick pleasure by tricking our
body, with no good outcome for us as individuals or for our species.

This was a basic review of how chemistry influences what we feel towards our loved ones.
Whether it is comprehensive remains for you to decide. It's hard for chemistry to explain our
feelings and at the moment there are a lot of things outside our understanding. Defining those
things is up to each of us, the way we love and miss is particular to the individual. You might
like it being this way, you might not, whatever the case, you get to decide who will be your
partner when exploring the chemistry of love.

Be curious.

Sources (this one has less sources because I also used my background in biochemistry when
writing it and because I used a lot of the sources of those three references I posted here):

Love, Actually: The science behind lust, attraction, and companionship - a great and
comprehensive explanation with good references

Neurochemistry of Love: Can Romantic Love Truly be Addictive? - great paper, lots of
references

NGF and romantic love - about the nerve growth factor