3 Ways Love Affects the Brain & 3 Steps for Healthy Relationships

Today, I’m going to talk about three aspects of love that affect our brain and the way we think. If we can understand how our brain processes these emotions, then we can become better at handling our emotions as well as our relationships. I start by explaining what these three aspects are, the chemical reaction that happens in our body when we feel them, and the ways we can improve how we handle these feelings. Come join me and discover what aspect you can gradually improve. Key Takeaways: 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:39 Love and relationships affect the brain 00:05:34 Three ways feelings of love show up in the brain 00:05:58 Attraction 00:06:12 Lust 00:17:44 Attachment Like this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally! Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on Calm Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:41Jay Shetty?

  Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. This episode is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. One of the best investments you can make is in your own strength. The choices you make today can help shape how you feel for years to come. Orange Theory Fitness provides a one-hour workout to build strength, burn fat, and build muscle, with an expert coach guiding you every step of the way. Head to orangetheory.com/onpurpose to learn more and get your first class free. Orange Theory Fitness, helping people live longer, more vibrant lives. Terms and conditions apply. See webpage in studio for details. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too?

• 1:25Jay Shetty?

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• 2:09Jay Shetty?

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• 2:28Jay Shetty?

  So what do we do in that situation? When you're feeling lusty, it is natural. It is a desire for sexual gratification. That's what it is. And to see it as that clearly and not change the language to someone else or to ourselves. Now, if you're in a relationship and you're experiencing this for someone else, what do you do in that situation? You have to realize it can be common and that every time you feel it, it doesn't mean you need to act on it. At the same time, you don't want to suppress it. So what do you do about it?

• 3:03Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, helping you become happier, healthier and more healed. How many of you know that that's what you're looking for in your life? You're looking for health, happiness and healing. You're in exactly the right place. And I want to thank you all because it has been phenomenal to see the number of downloads just growing month upon month upon month. I know so many of you are recommending the podcast to your friends. I see hundreds of thousands of you sharing it in your stories every week. And it's been truly heart touching for me. Because when I started this three and a half years ago,

• 3:47Jay Shetty?

  I had no idea where it was going to go. And whether you started listening three episodes ago, three months ago, or three years ago, you have been a huge part of making mental health mainstream, about making these conversations and these topics be a part of everyday life so that we can positively improve and impact the lives of other people. And so, thank you so much for being a part of that. It means the world to me. I can't wait because my new book's out next year, 31st of January, Eight Rules of Love. If you haven't ordered it already, you can grab it at eightrulesoflove.com. And I'll be coming on tour as well.

• 4:29Jay Shetty?

  So if you preorder it, you'll get access to my tour dates as soon as they're announced. And today's topic is about love and relationships. I think I've been recording a lot on this theme for the last year because it's been front and center for me, my clients and my community. And it's amazing because it's an area of our life that can bring us the greatest joy or cause us the greatest pain. And I think we often think about how relationships impact our heart. We think about the emotions of love and joy and fulfillment as heart-based feelings.

• 5:09Jay Shetty?

  We talk about having our heart broken or our heart won. We talk about how something feels in our chest. We talk about our heart skipping a beat or losing our breath. When someone takes your breath away, it's all related to that area of our lives. We also often unconsciously talk about our gut, like I feel nervous, I feel butterflies, right? These are all gut-based feelings in relationships. Or we say, I know he's not right for me, I feel it in my gut. Or what does your gut say?

• 5:47Jay Shetty?

  And so a lot of our language, a lot of our vocabulary, a lot of our thoughts around love and relationships are based around the heart and the gut. And we often say things like, well, make sure your head's screwed on straight. You know, does that make sense in your head? Take your head with your heart. But we often don't realize that love, relationships, and the aspects included in it actually affect the brain. The brain is interacting with these different emotions, different feelings, different ideas, and the brain is impacted and shows chemical changes, chemical balances, imbalances.

• 6:31Jay Shetty?

  And I think that for all of us to understand love deeper in our lives, for us to understand what we're really experiencing. Like, how many times have you ever felt like someone loves you only to realize they weren't in love with you? Right? I'm sure you've had that experience, or you have a friend that's had that experience. Or how many of you have ever had the experience where you feel you love someone? But then you realize you didn't really love them, it was something else. And love's this big word that gets thrown around, talked about, over-popularized, oversubscribed to, only for us to not know what it actually means.

• 7:16Jay Shetty?

  Studies show that men often think about expressing feelings of love first, and on average, it takes them 97.3 days to consider saying "I love you", while women take around 138 days to say it. And men consider confessions of love acceptable after about a month, whereas women think about it after two to three months. So we've realized that a lot of us are quite good at falling in love too fast. And that's why I like looking at the brain's perspective, because if I ask you, "What did you feel? What were you going through? How did you know?" It can be quite subjective,

• 7:56Jay Shetty?

  but the way these different feelings of love show up in the brain are actually really interesting. So there are three ways love shows up in the brain, or feelings of love show up in the brain. And they are lust, attraction, and attachment. Now, I think we can all relate to these, right? We've all experienced lust, or at least we know what that looks like and what that feels like, and we'll talk a bit about that in a moment. The second is attraction. It's a deeper sense of lust, it's maybe a longer sense of lust, it's a timeframe that changes that conversation. And the third is attachment. So, when we're experiencing lust...

• 8:43Jay Shetty?

  Testosterone and estrogen are the most active chemicals. With attraction, it's dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. And for attachment, it's oxytocin and vasopressin. So we realise that what we group together, or often lump together, is love, infatuation, attraction, or maybe you are good at knowing the difference. I think it's very hard to know the difference in the moment. And I'm taking this from a Harvard Business School research study. In 2005, Fisher led a research team that published a groundbreaking study that included the first functional MRI, fMRI, images of the brains of individuals who are experiencing

• 9:28Jay Shetty?

  romantic love. They looked at about 2,500 brain scans. And what they did is that they showed them pictures of acquaintances, and they showed them pictures of people they were romantically involved in. And they wanted to see what happened. And they found that when people were shown pictures of people they were romantically involved in, the brains became more active in regions rich with dopamine, the so-called feel-good neurotransmitter. And what they found is when we're falling in love, there were a few things that happened. Our physical body reacts, so we have racing hearts, sweaty palms, flushed cheeks, feelings of passion, and even anxiety.

• 10:11Jay Shetty?

  And levels of the stress hormone cortisol increases during the initial phase of romantic love. And it almost makes your body feel like it has to cope with a state of crisis. If you've ever felt like, well, I need to message them, when are they going to message me, when am I going to see them, what am I going to wear? It's almost like a heightened sense of stress that we're experiencing and pressure. And we see that stress and pressure as excitement. And we may also see it as stressful. It's interesting, isn't it? Because we may also experience that with different things in our life. When we're about to do something exciting, when we're about to do something big, but we often see it as negative. Now, what happens is, as the cortisol levels rise,

• 10:53Jay Shetty?

  Schwartz says that the serotonin becomes depleted. And those low levels of serotonin is what sparks, what Schwartz says are the intrusive, maddeningly preoccupying thoughts, hopes, terrors of early love, like the infatuation that's gained with that. Why is this important to us? It's important because we need to know the difference between lust, attraction, and attachment. Stress, anxiety, overwhelm, burnout. What do all of these have in common? A lack of perceived control over your time, thoughts, and tasks.

• 11:36Jay Shetty?

  But what if I told you fixing all of these problems is as simple as fixing your mindset towards them? I know, not simple at all. Everyone's busy, everyone's stressed, but we could all use more calm in our lives. And learning to stay grounded and grateful is truly a daily practice. That's why I've partnered with Calm.com to bring you the Daily J. If you've ever wanted to meditate with me and take back control over your busy mind, join me on the Calm app for the Daily J, a daily guided meditation where I'll help you find calm in the chaos, plant beautiful intentions for a happy, abundant life, and simple steps for positive actions to get you closer to the life of your dreams.

• 12:21Jay Shetty?

  Meditate with me by going to calm.com/j to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. That's only $42 for the whole year for daily guided meditations. Experience the Daily J only on Calm. This episode is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is the chance to step outside of our routine. Travel is a way of slowing us down and shifting our perspective. And with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, every journey becomes even more rewarding. Earn four times the points on flights and hotels booked direct. Enjoy access to award-winning airport lounges, three times the points on dining and reserve-exclusive tables.

• 13:06Jay Shetty?

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• 13:19Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need the most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast.

• 14:02Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. The best habits are the ones we hardly notice, the ones that quietly shape the way we move through life, giving us the confidence to focus on what really matters. That's Mazda's approach to safety. Every Mazda is designed with proactive safety features that help keep you more aware, more connected, and more engaged with your drive, so you can stay present behind the wheel. That commitment has earned Mazda recognition as Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. And as of July 2026, Mazda has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus awards than any other car brand.

• 14:47Jay Shetty?

  Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Mazda, more of what matters to you. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Now lust, as I talked about before, stimulates the production of sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen from the testes and ovaries. And we often mistake that for love or deeper attraction, but the brain science shows that it's actually different. Now, for anyone who's experienced lust before, I mean lust is what makes us cheat. Lust is what makes us sometimes do regrettable things.

• 15:28Jay Shetty?

  Lust is also what makes us love bomb, makes us make someone feel like we are deeply into them and then the next day forget about them. And so lust, decision making, is often unhealthy. And I find that we've created a society where lust is somewhat glorified. Lust is seen as, you know, some people see lust, obviously religiously, as a negative thing, but we think of that spark and we think of that stress and we think of that pressure as all positive. And while it can be a sign or an indicator or a signal in the right direction, it is not a sign of love. And I think when you're on the receiving end of that, when you're on the receiving end of someone obsessing about you and being really into you,

• 16:12Jay Shetty?

  it can be a really captivating feeling, like it can be really intoxicating as a feeling when someone's lusting after you. But it's important for you to realize that that's not the stabilizer of a relationship. That's not what makes a relationship sustainable. It's not what makes a good quality relationship last. And so it's just something to think about. Now, if you're someone who feels like you get attracted to or lust after someone every single week, every single month, and maybe you're in a committed relationship. I want to get to an uncomfortable conversation here about how so many people who are in committed loving relationships can still experience lust for someone else.

• 16:55Jay Shetty?

  And when they do, usually they do two things. They act on it. Or they suppress it. And in that moment, the acting on it, of course, makes you feel guilty, makes you feel shameful, makes you feel regret, and maybe you even do it in secret. So you're scared of being found out, and we see that happen. Or someone suppresses it. They pretend it doesn't exist. They act like it's not real. They don't tell their partner about it, or don't talk about it openly, because they're scared of feeling judged. And that suppression usually leads to something insurmountable in the future when it all erupts. So what do we do in that situation?

• 17:36Jay Shetty?

  When you're feeling lusty, when you're going through that triggered response, how do you monitor that? I think the first thing we have to realize is that it is natural. It is a desire for sexual gratification. That's what it is. And to see as that clearly, and not change the language to someone else or to ourselves, to not kid ourselves that it's something deeper or more meaningful, and to not convey that to someone else, because we may end up misleading them as well. I think that's a really healthy way of thinking about it. Now, if you're in a relationship and you're experiencing this for someone else, what do you do in that situation? I think one of the first things is, you have to realize that it can be common, and that

• 18:19Jay Shetty?

  every time you feel it, it doesn't mean you need to act on it. At the same time, you don't want to suppress it. So what do you do about it? Well, one of the things you need to do is come up with an internal dialogue to coach yourself through it. You have to think about what's really special about what you have. You have to think about what's important about what you've built. You've got to reconnect with that feeling you probably had about the person you're with right now, and it naturally wore off. And here's the thing. So what changed is that the stress hormone actually decreased as time went on. So in the beginning, you're experiencing the high stress. As you get to know someone, your stress decreases, because being with them reduces your stress.

• 19:03Jay Shetty?

  Now, sometimes we see that as a sign of the spark's gone. We see that as a sign of we've lost what we had. No, you haven't. You've actually gained something. Their company makes you feel calm. Their company makes you feel peaceful. That relationship is giving you the benefits of a deeper relationship. But we got so used to identifying that stress of what do I wear around them? How do I feel about them? Do we get along? Where should we go? What should we do? We saw that as love, when actually it was just lust that was going to evolve if we allowed it to. So where do we go from here? We're experiencing lust, attraction, attachment.

• 19:46Jay Shetty?

  When we talk about attraction, high levels of dopamine and a related hormone, norepinephrine, are released during attraction. These chemicals make us giddy, energetic, and euphoric, even leading to decreased appetite and insomnia, which means you can actually be so in love that you can't eat and sleep. You notice how these physical descriptions of love actually come from what is chemically happening. And so when people are going through this, often we're like, oh yeah, you're just attracted, you're just infatuated, which is true, but it is a chemical reaction. And when we know this in and of ourselves, we can learn to say, okay, well, I should eat, I should sleep.

• 20:28Jay Shetty?

  I may feel like I can't, but I have to think about my health and wellbeing during this time as well. And attraction seems to lead to a reduction in serotonin, a hormone that's known to be involved in appetite and mood. Interestingly, studies show people who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder also have low levels of serotonin, leading scientists to speculate that this is what underlies the overpowering infatuation that characterizes the beginning stages of love. So notice how the beginning stages of love are like this giddy, energetic, euphoric. This then calms down, as I was talking about earlier, but then we want that feeling again. It's almost like a drug, right? There's almost an addictive nature to it.

• 21:12Jay Shetty?

  And a lot of the science shows that love is addictive. So some research goes on to suggest that falling in love is an obsession. And the research says that while you're wild about someone, your serotonin levels go down, which is the same trend typically found in people with obsessive compulsive disorder. It's also true that a brain in love is very similar to a brain in throes of addiction. Further brain imaging studies show activity in the nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain that lights up when someone is addicted to a substance like cocaine or a behaviour like gambling. Again, the love bombing aspect, the aspect of someone being addicted to you and then being distant from you.

• 21:54Jay Shetty?

  The idea of feeling addicted to someone that you need to see them every day, that you want to see them every day, that you want to be with them every day. And this is something we have to monitor, it's something we have to be aware of. It's something that we don't just let it take over again and again and again. Because the idea that we're addicted to someone can be extremely painful when that someone is no longer around, no longer with us, no longer in our vicinity, maybe out of reach. What I'm suggesting you do is understand the chemical imbalances that are going on here, because when we don't understand these, we think it's all real, and I'm not saying it's not real, it is, but it's short-lived, it's temporary, it's ephemeral.

• 22:39Jay Shetty?

  Last but not least is attachment, which is the predominant factor in long-term relationships. So while lust and attraction are pretty much exclusive to romantic relationships, attachment mediates friendships, parent-infant bonding, and many other intimacies as well. And the two primary hormones here appear to be oxytocin and vasopressin. So we start to notice that if you want a long-term relationship with someone, it is natural for that initial feeling to subside, but that is a healthy thing. That is a healthy thing, because the stress that comes from life is what is balanced out by the quality of our relationships. The challenges that come with navigating our workplace,

• 23:23Jay Shetty?

  the challenges that come with navigating things in our home environment. Ideally, our partner and our friends and our long-term relationships act as almost like a cushion to catch us, like a net. And I wanted to talk about this because I find that a lot of the time, our partner has the pressure to provide everything we need.

• 23:49Jay Shetty?

  Right, we put a lot of pressures on our partners to provide all of our needs. They need to be interesting as well as exciting. They need to be knowledgeable as well as silly. They need to be there for us as well as independent. They need to be confident as well as be vulnerable. We want them to be everything. We want them to be into sports, but we want them to be in touch with their emotions. Now, I'm not saying these things are mutually exclusive. I'm not saying that these things are opposites, but I'm saying that there are a lot of demands on a singular person. And that's why we find that we jump from romantic relationship to another, to another, to another. It's why we move from entanglement to entanglement to entanglement, because we're constantly looking for that reduction in serotonin.

• 24:34Jay Shetty?

  We're constantly looking for that production of testosterone or estrogen. And we're constantly chasing that emotion because it's so addictive. And that's why we get bored in long-term relationships. It's why we start feeling like the love has gone away, when actually it potentially has deepened. So I hope this episode, it's very different from our usual On Purpose episodes, but I wanted to give an attempt to explaining what's happening behind the scenes. Because I think it will change the way we approach love. It will change the way you look at your partner this week. Because I'm hoping that listening to this, if you've been in a long-term relationship for a while, you look at your partner and you try and notice the potential of the greatness that's there, the value that you've built. And if you're someone who's in a new relationship,

• 25:19Jay Shetty?

  you'll realize that we're not trying to make this feeling last. It will go away, but let's get excited of where we're going to. And if you're someone who's single, who's going through these experiences, you start to realize that they're natural. You are going to feel infatuated, you are going to get attracted, but you want to temper that with a bit of balance and see how it grows. So, thank you so much for joining On Purpose today. I am loving all of the engagement, all of the interaction that we have. I appreciate you so deeply and I cannot wait to see you for our next episode. I hope you're loving our solos and our guest episodes. Thank you so much for believing in me, trusting me. Pass this on to a friend who needs to understand the science about what's happening in the brain with love and relationships. And I'll see you again next week or tomorrow,

• 26:03Jay Shetty?

  if you're listening to so many other of our incredible, incredible archive of episodes. Thank you so much.

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