How to Make a Scientifically Proven Love Potion

What makes us feel in love? And can we do something to feel that way right now?

I am a biomedical and neuroscience enthusiast and I set myself the task of making a scientifically proven love potion.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Humans are obsessed with love. But why do we feel this way? Why does love exist?

“Humans are an incredibly cooperative species, not because we love each other, but because we have to survive,” says Anna Machin, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Oxford who investigates the science behind our closest relationships.

His theory is that “in an ideal world, all species would be lonely because it’s very, very difficult to cooperate with one another.”

“But we have developed very complex social networks where we not only love lovers, but also children, family, friends, pets, God, etc. So we need to do three main things:

• survive,
• endure, find food, build shelter, learn a great deal of information
• and raising our incredibly dependent children.

“The problem is that living with other people is really hard.”

“First of all, you have to exist within a very strict hierarchy, and that means you spend a lot of your time monitoring where everyone else is.”

“Besides, people are sometimes not very nice. They lie and cheat and steal.”

“So being cooperative is very stressful.”

“So at the most basic level, love is a biological bribe formal structure that evolution has created to ensure that we get started and then invest in and maintain the relationships we need to survive.”

And to bribe us, biology joined chemistry.

the first ingredients

There are four main chemicals that are responsible for the feeling of love.

“When you start a relationship, at that moment when you feel attracted to someone, oxytocin and dopamine are released, which are very important at this stage.”

“The oxytocin lower your inhibitions to initiate new social relationships by calming your brain’s fear center, the amygdala”.

Oxytocin is probably the most studied of the four main chemicals. It is colloquially called the “love drug”, but in fact the other three substances are equally crucial when it comes to love.

“Dopamine is your body’s chemical reward, but when it is released in relation to attraction and love it is to motivate you to make an effort – go talk to the person you liked. Oxytocin is amazing, but if it’s released on its own it can make you feel so relaxed that you can’t do anything.”

So let’s put these two chemicals in the cauldron. And there’s a third that’s also critical at the start of a relationship: serotonin.

“We think it’s associated with the obsessive aspects of love.”

“In the beginning of a relationship, you just obsess: you constantly talk about this person, you want to be with them all the time. Even in a long-term relationship, you have to be vaguely obsessed with your partner to bother coordinating your relationship. day with him or ask how he is.”

But we have a problem.

“Human love can last for decades, and oxytocin and dopamine are great, but we become tolerant of themand its effects don’t last long.”

We need something more.

The main bonding chemical that sustains long-term human love is beta endorphin.

“He does it because it’s highly addictive.”

“When you interact with someone you love – you touch them, you laugh, you hug them – you get a huge dose of beta endorphins and you feel euphoria, warmth, joy, security… those feelings of being in love. And then, when you walk away from them, you experience withdrawal syndrome, which forces you to come back to satisfy that irresistible urge.”

“It works in exactly the same way as any opiate.”

Okay, there we have it: relaxing oxytocin, vigorous dopamine, obsessive serotonin and addictive beta endorphin… should we add aphrodisiacs?

The desire

“There is a lot of anecdotal evidence throughout history about the effects of aphrodisiacs. But the scientific evidence does not tend to support it,” says Dr. Kate Lister, emphasizing that “it is very difficult to measure in the laboratory”.

“If you consider it an aphrodisiac, it’s probably: the placebo effect is well documented”adds the sex historian and author of A Curious History of Sex.

She says that many “aphrodisiacs” have achieved this status because they somewhat resemble the shape of genitals: asparagus, carrots, even phallic rhino horns or oysters, papaya or figs, which evoke the vulva.

So Kate thought it was a good idea to include some of them in the potion. She also gave us other ideas.

“You know what they had in the 16th century outside of brothels? Boiled prunes because they thought it was good for the libido. Another is tiramisu. Its origin is hotly debated, but it is said to be eaten in Italian brothels for energy. to customers.”

Avoid at all costs

We are listing ingredients, but it would be a shame if we accidentally included one that spoils everything. Is there anything to avoid?

“Throughout history, it was believed that if you wanted to suppress sexual urgesI needed to eat bland, boring food,” says Lister. “That’s where cornflake cereal comes from.”

“John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor, was part of an anti-masturbation brigade in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and that was one of the reasons he created the cornflake cereal.”

Okay, our potion only admits vibrant and intense flavors. But what about the scents?

And the smells?

“How odors can affect sexual arousal has never been studied scientifically, despite the number of perfumes out there,” says neurologist and psychiatrist Alan Richard Hirsch, neurological director at the Taste and Smell Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago.

“So we did an original study that looked at medical students who were introduced to all kinds of different scents, perfumes and colognes. Then we measured penile blood flow.”

“As a controlling scent, which we thought would have no effect, we used the scent of baked cinnamon rolls. And the cinnamon rolls had a bigger effect than all the perfumes put together!“

From there, Alan set up a larger experiment studying men from the general population of Chicago between the ages of 18 and 64.

“We tried all kinds of perfumes and lots of foods and found that…

• The #1 perfume that increased penile blood flow was a combination of lavender and pumpkin pie
• #2 was donuts and black licorice
• #3 was pumpkin pie and donuts.”

It sounds strange, why did these flavors provoke more excitement?

“The best theory that came up was that in our evolutionary past, people tended to gather around places where there was food, and around food they were more likely to find a mate.”

And the women?

Alan did another study and found that the scent that most affected female sexual arousal was a combination of licorice and cucumber jam.

Of course, it’s not that simple.. Each individual responds differently.

“We also did the study in Chicago; people elsewhere probably have completely different olfactory hedonic references.”

The important thing is that the power of smell is real.

“We often appeal to the visual, which is mediated by the logical part of the brain, whereas smell is pure emotion.”

Neurochemicals, aphrodisiacs, aromas… is there anything else missing?

According to Anglia Ruskin University professor of social psychology, Viren Swami, definitely yes.

your decision

“We often forget that, maybe not so much attraction, but loving and maintaining relationships is also a choice. We choose to be in love. We choose to behave with love and we choose to take care of other people”, says the author of Attraction explained: the science of how we shape our relationships.

“People who focus on things like genes and neuroscience absolve us of that responsibility by saying, ‘It’s not you, you haven’t made a conscious decision. It’s your brain telling you that you feel this way.’

“But even if there’s an initial feeling that can’t be controlled, in the end, we choose to fall in love.”

Viren recalled the words of Erich Fromm, author of The Art of Loving, who said: “Love is not a feeling, but a practice”.

“Love alone is useless.”

“If you’re sitting at home alone and in love, then great, but so what? But if you go out into the world and say, ‘I love this person, or this group of people, or my community or ecology or animals or any other thing, so I’m going to do it for them,’ you’re showing love and it’s so much more meaningful.”

This is getting a little philosophical, but he’s right: let’s add some of these wonderful abstract ingredients to the potion.

A spoonful of free willfor starters, as we are not just a pre-programmed ball of neurochemicals, a good dash of altruism, a touch of kindness, a cup of communicationetc.

Oh, and one last important thing!

“The other ingredient I would say is – and this also goes back to Erich Fromm – that there’s no point in loving other people if you don’t love yourself first.”

Drink ready!

So let’s remember…

These abstract ingredients were added to the mixture of tiramisu, figs and stewed plums, whose dubious aphrodisiac properties are bolstered by a powerful neurochemical cocktail of oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin and beta endorphin.

And I added a few slices of pumpkin pie for the gentlemen and licorice for the ladies, to give it that sexy scent we’ve been looking for.

In the end, of course, the concoction is no better than the crushed Spanish fly tonic served by the ancient Greeks or the suspect medieval seduction cakes made from sweat, blood and other bodily fluids.

But though I never expected to be able to bottle love, maybe we can use the recipe.

Release these neurochemicals by dancing, hugging, living, laughing and loving. Recognize that while love is an addiction, it’s also a choice, so be empathetic to others and kind to yourself…and eat foods that resemble genitalia if you feel like it.