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In fact, love is akin to a pain killer, like codeine, researchers at Stanford University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook found.
"Intense, passionate feelings of love can provide amazingly effective pain relieve, similar to painkillers or such illicit drugs as cocaine," said a press release for the study, which was published in the journal PloS One.
So what makes falling deeply in love similar to popping pills or snorting coke? The study's authors are not exactly sure.
"When people are in this passionate, all-consuming phase of love, there are significant alterations in their mood that are impacting their experience of pain," said Sean Mackey, the study's senior author. "We're beginning to tease apart some of these reward systems in the brain and how they influence pain. These are very deep, old systems in our brain that involve dopamine -- a primary neurotransmitter that influences mood, reward and motivation."
The study used a modest sample of 15 undergraduate college students who underwent a series of tests in which they stared at pictures of their current romantic partners. Using brain scanning technology, the researchers were able to chart the neural chain of events when a test subject concentrated on the person he or she felt passionately about.
"One of the key sites for love-induced analgesia is the nucleus accumbens, a key reward addiction center for opioids, cocaine and other drugs of abuse. The region tells the brain that you really need to keep doing this," Jarred Younger said.
Like with all drugs, however, once the initial throes of passion die down, it can be a rocky road ahead, as Stanford's Scope blog noted:
The problem is, this phase of love rarely lasts longer than a year or two and often gets replaced by bone-crushing pain -- which the scientist didn't measure in this study.
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