What is the scientific reason behind becoming “blinded by love”?
In: Biology
Hormones.
Oxytocin is the hormone for pleasure. Whatever we do for pleasure, eat chocolates, take a long ride, listen to music, make love, it all is intended to release that hormone (and some allied ones), which then gives us the feeling of pleasure. One more way to release the hormones, which by passes going through the activities of making love or having chocolates, etc. is drugs. People who take drugs intend for their brain to release the hormone by chemically inducing the release instead of an experience releasing it.
Hormones govern how we feel, and how we prioritize our responses to the stimuli. When Oxytocin is released due to being in love, the general warm glow that envelopes you the whole day makes you not bother about the consequences of your words and acts, it makes you lose inhibition, and also makes you credulous of everyone. You become vulnerable in your happiness because that happiness overtakes the part of the mind that is cautious and cynic, and there is only so much of mental resources to go by. This flooded and overwhelmed brain is not a good judge of situations, people and events. That’s what is called being blind in love.
However, remember that there are happy hormones, but also angry hormones like Adrenaline, which secrete when the situation implies a danger for the body. The situation is called fear, fight or flight. That hormones also makes you go blind, in the sense that the critical and analytical part of the brain gets overwhelmed by the action oriented part of the brain. The sense of pain, worries of injuries, averseness to blood and violence, fear of authority and social norms, all fly out of the window. As a result, the person experiencing this hormone raging in their bloodstream may jump off a cliff, run for miles with broken bones, fight off an attacking tiger or slap an abusive boss in front of everyone. That’s being blind in anger. Not very different from being blind in anger.
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