Lovesick: What are the adverse effects of love?

On every valentine’s day people dwell on the positive aspects of

love, which brings humans to existence and plays a central role in
search of happiness.
Science shows that the neurophysiological benefits of being in love
are numerous.
Relieving pain, lowering blood pressure, easing stress, and generally
improving one’s cardiovascular health, and many more.
But if love was nothing more than positive feelings, we probably
would not apply words such as “smitten” or “lovesick” to describe its
emotions.
So, let's discuss the physiological effects of love...
 Love and stress hormone
Being in love triggers a cocktail of chemicals in the brain. Some of the
hormones releases when we’re infatuated which can have a soothing
effect.
For example, people consider Oxytocin as love hormone. But it is
released during physical sensation, it lowers stress and anxiety.
But oxytocin only starts to increase after the first year of love.
Research shows that people who had fallen in love just before 6
months had higher level of the stress hormone Cortisol and after 12-
24 months their cortisol level was normal.
High cortisol levels can impair the immune system. It also raises
hypertension and type 2 diabetes. And it can impair brain function,
memory, and may shrink the brain.
 Limerence: When love is overpowering
In 1979, Dorothy Tennov, coined the term 'limerence'. In her book,
Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love, she defines
limerence as an involuntary, enormously intense, and
overwhelmingly passionate state in which the “limerent” person can
feel obsessed with and emotionally dependent on the object of their
limerence.
In other words
“To be in the state of limerence is to feel what is usually termed
‘being in love,'” the author writes.
Tennov listed several or signs of limerence.
• "intrusive thinking about the object of your passionate desire”
• "acute longing for reciprocation”
• dependence on the actions of the object of your limerence, or
rather, on the possibility that they might reciprocate your feelings
• an intense fear of rejection
• “intensification through adversity,” meaning that the more difficult
it is to consume the feeling, the more intense it becomes
• "an aching of the ‘heart’ (a region in the centre front of the chest)
when uncertainty is strong.
• an intensity of the feeling and narrow focus on the limerent object
that makes other concerns and activities pale by comparison
So by now, this question might’ve arisen in your brain that is
limerence healthful? Limerence has associations with many “tragic
situations,” she says, including intended “‘accidents’, outright suicide
(often with note left behind to the limerent object) divorce,
homicide, and a host of ‘minor’ side effects” that she documents in
her book.
Furthermore, in retrospect, people who have experienced limerence
report feelings of self-hatred and tend to berate themselves for not
having been able to shake off the uncontrollable feeling.
Tennov’s book is filled with many strategies that limerents have tried
— more or less successfully — to rid themselves of the feeling,
including journaling, focusing on the limerent object’s flaws, or
seeing a therapist.
 Love as an addiction
When a person engages in love and other pleasurable activities
dopamine is released in the body.
love activates the same brain circuitry and reward mechanisms that
are involved in addiction
A test was conducted in which researchers asked 15 participants who
reported feeling intensely in love to look at images of their lovers
who had rejected them. As they did so, the scientists scanned the
participants’ brains in MRI machine
The study found high brain activity which leads to stress and a
shortage in age and was found in areas associated with cocaine
addiction.
and found that he is always obsessed towards love for other person.
Activation of areas involved in cocaine addiction may help explain
the obsessive behaviours associated with rejection in love,”
love should be “treated” in the same way as any other addiction
those people whose lives are negatively impacted by love and face
many problems and always think about it.
ought to be offered support and treatment opportunities
Falling in Love Hits the Brain Like Cocaine Does!!