Biochemical Relationships

[This article is intended to inspire your own research into these fascinating processes in the human body. Always do your own research to ensure accuracy of information on the web.]

To begin, I think this summary of Dr. Ted Huston's research on relationships is excellent. He had the opportunity to monitor relationships from their beginnings to 14 years in the future. His findings are really fascinating. Here are just a few of his observations:

• Women who sense future problems while they are courting generally find out after they are married that their concern was well-founded.
• Couples who are particularly lovey-dovey as newlyweds are likely to divorce.
• Whether a marriage will be happy or whether it is headed for the divorce court can be foretold from how things go during its first two years.
• Men with traits stereotyped as “feminine” make better husbands.
• The extent of differences in tastes and ideas among couples does not predict divorce. 
• Some couples bury their concerns over such differences; others brood over them. Those who brood are more likely to divorce.
• Anxiety, moodiness, and emotional swings in the wife or the husband do not preordain divorce, but they are related to unhappiness in marriage.
• The birth of a child transforms couples’ lifestyles, but it does not change the feelings husbands or wives have about each other.
• Wives’ [relationship] maintenance behavior is significantly associated with husbands’ satisfaction when spouses are newlyweds.
• Wives engage in more maintenance behaviors than husbands.
• Spouses’ maintenance behavior declines over the first two years of marriage.

To gain a better understanding of observations like these, I wanted to share some findings on the role of hormone activity and how they effect human relationships. My previous article on the Hormonal Male shares insights on testosterone and its effect on behavior. In this piece, I will look at the chemicals that contribute the feeling of being in love and long-term bonding and commitment.

Dopamine - The Motivational Powerhouse

You may have heard about dopamine with its one role as the nuerotransmitter responsible for feelings of pleasure and reward. Indeed, dopamine levels are elevated in the brain in the presence of a perceived reward, whether this is food, sex, drugs, or rock and roll. Both dopamine and norepinephrine play critical roles in the functioning of the brain, prefrontal cortex, and, thus, cognition. So, keep these chemicals in mind for your own research.

Due to its role in motivational activity such as pleasure and reward, dopamine is associated with addiction. It is our craving for dopamine release that drives us to repeat activities that cause its release. This is why drugs like cocaine are so addictive and make people feel like they are on top of the world - they cause massive amounts of dopamine release.

It may be no surprise then that elevated dopamine levels are found in the courtship phase of a relationship. Ever wonder why a new relationship can feel so good and one can "fall hard," becoming obsessed with their partner or crush? We are talking about the same systems that are involved in drug addiction. "Love" is very much a drug. However, what type of love are we really talking about?

Our craving for the release of romance is very powerful. I think everyone can gain more wisdom in love and romance by understanding that the beginning of a relationship is likely to be driven by addictive tendencies and drug-seeking motivation. There is nothing wrong about this observation, it is obviously a natural outcome, but we should distinguish this "hard-falling," head-over-heels situation from the long-term bonding and friendship that occurs in love that involves outcomes like marriage and raising children together.  

Mistaking the Dopamine Heavy Beginning for the Long Term Experience

Humans have an excessive present-bias and when it comes to the resource intensive process of dating, we tend to have very little experience in knowing how best to conduct relationships in the face of the raging hormones that occur in falling for another person. 

Think about it, you only get a limited number of chances to fall in love in your lifetime. People generally only marry a handful of times, if that, in their lifetime. There just are not many instances to use to gain wisdom and experience. Its much easier to follow our heart, or our gut, or is it our intuition, or it just feels right/wrong....we often let the chemicals lead, and rationalize it in many ways.

Dr. Huston's finding that couples who are particularly lovey-dovey as newlyweds are more likely to divorce is striking in how it relates to how people approach the beginning of relationships.  My suggestion is that people get addicted to the love drug phase and then are let down when the hits of dopamine wane with time. 

Like with many forms of stimulation, the brain will adapt to it over time and whatever quantity of something that triggered a dopamine release in the past will trigger a smaller release in the future. This includes the rush you get being around your significant other. Within a few months to a few years, you will naturally no longer feel the same drug-like satisfaction from your partner as you once did.

Couples may really struggle with these natural changes if they think the rush of a new relationship is meant to last into the future. Many people who claim they are no longer in love later in a relationship may simply be interpreting the absence of a dopamine response to the partner as a deterioration of the quality of the relationship. They may say "I'm just not feeling it anymore" or "I don't think I love you anymore." I'm sure many a break up has occured under rationalizations of the loss of intense, dopamine-drive attraction.

 The problem of "lovey-doveyness" in the early part of a relationship is not anything to do with being crazy love birds. That is a chemically motivated outcome. The problem is this may set up inexperienced partners for failure in the future as they adjust their expectations to this unsustainable, fiery and romantic beginning. The dopamine hits they receive will disappear, if they identify these rushes with love itself, then love magically disappears too.

This is why many people may be addicted to romance, having many short term relationships but always managing to have them fail within a few months or years. Their dissatisfaction is real, but they may mistake the dissatisfaction of losing the love drug, with dissatisfaction for their partner and relationship as a whole.

Moreover, in addiction, we overlook the flaws and problems of the other person because they just make us feel so good at first. This may cause us to sacrifice mature considerations of compatibility and differing views of relationships. Within a few months or years, the dopamine glasses fall off and we can finally see our partners for who they really are as a whole person, including their flaws and differing long-term desires. 

The Long Term Experience and Oxytocin

IF one could divide the complex development of romantic relationships into two phases, the oxytocin and bonding phase would be what occurs in the relationship after the dopamine driven phase recedes.

Oxytocin is shown to increase cooperative and bonding behaviors, and occurs in elevated levels for those in successful long term relationships. Once the dopamine phase recedes, oxytocin is one of the hormones responsible for keeping the relationship going.

The reason this transition is not so straight forward is that feelings of bonding are not the same as the fiery, sexual, and rollorcoaster-like experience found at the beginning of a relationship. Bonding is more warmth and affection, often found in familial, parental, and platonic relationships. Its ubiquity in all strong relationships may be why it is confusing for the inexperienced to navigate aging romantic situations. 

Yes, this means partnership bonds can feel more like friendships which could confuse the person who thinks romantic relationships are supposed to feel different and more intense. Hollywood does not help with this confusion as usually the fiery, dopamine-driven stage is what is shown in the movies and not the stable, and, relatively "boring", bonding phase that defines successful long term relationships.

Oxytocin has received a lot of press in recent times. Some of the things you should know about the chemical is that it is released during sexual intercourse, childbirth, and through physical interaction with a partner like touching and holding hands. Just spraying oxytocin up your nose is also shown to increase feelings of affection, causing couples to do more to the maintain the relationship when exposed to oxytocin.

Further Considerations with Biochemical Love

As you can see, very important and powerful chemicals are involved throughout the evolution of a relationship. These chemicals are so central to our activity that romantic love is just one area where they are expressed and influence our behavior.

As a result, problems with one's relationship with oxytocin and dopamine can set people up for struggles in romantic love. For instance, if one has addictive tendencies, struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, they have a higher tendency to struggle with love as well. Either repeatedly pursuing the love as a drug phase or replacing the relationship experience with love of the bottle instead.

Moreover, oxytocin function stems all the way back to our first bonds with our parents. If we were neglected as a child or severely disciplined such that we never learned how to healthily bond with a parent, we are more likely to struggle as an adult. Environment plays a huge role in our ability to bond, so it is important to understand that everyone has different tendencies for success in healthily relating to others. These are things you cannot control or change in meeting them many years later into their lifetimes.  

Having these biochemical influences in mind will lead you to have more wisdom and compassion in relationships. If you want to give the relationship the best shot for the long term, take it slow. Let yourself transition smoothly from fiery to committed to help your expectations evolve with the relationship. When meeting new potential partners understand that not everyone will have the experience or maturity to meet your own needs and expectations for a potential relationships. Maintain a set of standards to make sure your potential partner is good dating material to contract your natural tendency to overlook "fatal" flaws when infatuated.

Most importantly, take good care of yourself. Develop your ability to have intrinsic motivations, so you have strong alternatives to solely chasing dopamine hits from external factors outside your control. Be understanding and generous. Sometimes loving the other person means fighting with all your might to get them to see they are making mistake by leaving. Sometimes loving someone means letting them go and respecting everyone's unique value, which is never yours to control or change.

The Hormonal Male

[This article is intended to inspire your own research into these fascinating processes in the human body. Always do your own research to ensure accuracy of information on the web.]

Women unfairly get stigmatized for the natural hormonal changes that the human body undergoes as the days pass. The next time you think a woman is being "hormonal" or is "PMSing," stop yourself, because there are some quite powerful hormone cycles in men too. And, when is anyone not being hormonal? Do you feel hungry, tired, or horny, for instance? All are expressions of hormonal changes in the body. Hormone fluctuation is essential to human life.

If you are interested in learning more about the hormones that run our bodies. I recommend learning about melotonin and cortisol, for the circadian rhythm, sleep, and stress, leptin and ghrelin, for hunger, as well as insulin and glucagon, if you have ever been interested in diabetes. In this article, I will focus on hormones related to sexual behavior in males.

In popular thought, estrogen is the chemical associated with the female body, while testosterone is associated with the male body. While the relative amounts of these hormones relate directly to secondary sexual characteristics that present in a person, men and women both have the two chemicals in their body.

You cannot have a woman without testosterone and a man without estrogen.

The Daily Testosterone Cycle

So let's start with the Big T, testosterone. Did you know that men undergo a 24-hour testosterone cycle? Yes, every single day, men undergo hormonal changes throughout the day that effect mood and behavior.

Testosterone causes men to feel more aggressive, sexually-minded, and confident. These changes contribute to behaviors that have historically caused men to pursue mates for reproduction. In the body, testosterone directly relates to sperm production (sexual function) and secondary male sexual characteristics like facial hair and a higher percentage of muscle as part of body mass. These effects cause changes in metabolism as well, so testosterone is also related to male energy levels.

What you should know is that, on a daily basis, testosterone peaks in the morning and hits a low at night time. SO, men are generally more irritable, horny, confrontational, and energetic in the morning, while more calm, relaxed, asexual, and cooperative at night.

But, sex usually happens at night, right? How does that work if men are supposed to be less sexual then? Well, this objection, is a great example of how hormonal changes only effect proclivity or tendency for certain behaviors and how cultural stereotypes (like when sex should occur) can also affect behavior. Men in general have high testosterone levels even with the natural fluctuations that occur. Also, humans are special in that we have a broad capacity to reinterpret and redirect the feelings our body sends us. So, hormonal effects are of a more probabilistic nature and a loose rule rather than an obvious fact. This daily testosterone cycle also occurs in women, so, yes, they are, on base, hornier too in the morning.

Keep this probabilistic nature in mind for trying to explain someone's behavior based on hormones alone. This is another reason why judging a woman's behavior as hormonal is equally unfair. You really do not know what another person is feeling and their body is doing, so never make assumptions, especially with hormonal cycles that occur longer and more slowly than just a day.

The Lifetime Testosterone Cycle

Testosterone levels also vary throughout a person's life as well. Hitting highs with puberty, testosterone levels drop with age. This change is why, as men age, they tend to lose muscle mass and become less sexually motivated, for instance. Unlike female hormonal changes with age, men never lose their ability to cause a pregnancy.

Testosterone, the Environment, and Sexual Activity

Testosterone levels can also vary according to what is happening around a person and to them. Scientists have measured short term (hours to days) increases in testosterone levels when a person exercises, views pornography, potential sexual partners, and sexual content, assumes a dominant role in social settings, practices aggressive body language, and when fighting occurs.

Scientists have also done studies on how sexual activity causes fluctuations in testosterone levels. While sexual intercourse generally raises testosterone levels and studies on masturbation have shown T-levels often peak seven days after masturbation, testosterone, like most hormones, never acts alone.

So, certain activities do cause changes in hormone levels and, thus, changes in one's tendency to act a certain way throughout the entire day.

The stereotype is that men become more lethargic, sleepy, and asexual after orgasm, not more aggressive and sexual. Why is this?

Prolactin and Orgasm

One hormone that affects men after orgasm is prolactin, Yes, this is the same hormone that regulates breastfeeding in women - hormones often wear many hats!

Prolactin levels are shown to peak following orgasm and scientists believe this contributes to the refractory period, or the "no more sex for at least a few minutes feeling" and exhaustion after orgasm. Scientists give this hypothesis because hyperprolactinemia, or high prolactin levels, across many animal species, including humans, is directly correlated with reduced libido and gonadal function.

Oxytocin is also a major player in the satisfied feeling after sex and is believed to also cause the symptoms of the refractory period. I will talk more about Oxytocin in my follow up article on Biochemical Relationships!

All the Above

Other chemicals affect male behavior besides testosterone, but hopefully you are starting to see that estrogen is no more a potent chemical than testosterone is and men are just as "hormonal" as women.

Other ways to better understand human behavior and activity involve studying hormones like cortisol and adrenaline as well as the neurochemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine.

The big take away though is that men can just as easily be defined by their hormones as women regardless of whether this is fair or correct. Be consistent in how to view and treat others. If you want to risk the assumption of knowing someone else's hormonal state and how they uniquely handle it, than be prepared to see your own behavior and be defined in the same way.

IF you assume your girlfriend is being emotional and irritable because of the natural cycling of hormones in her body, be prepared for her to say you are just HTSing, high-testosterone-syndroming, the next time you try to initiate sex....putting people in boxes and using heuristics may be commonplace, but they always involve a sacrifice of greater understanding and often are thinly veiled ways to take responsibility for being a better person off of yourself.

The Amalgam

I am constantly an impression of every moment.

Like soft clay, holding the forms of the current influences on my life...

Books, radio, conversations,
articles, and stories on the 5 o'clock news...

My consciousness, constantly in motion, swaying, bending, flowing.

The I, sagging at the serif,
bowed at the trunk.

Who will you meet today?

I am the amalgam.
Memory's refuse pile and curiosity's plaything.

Unknown Rider

Could it be that I am but a passenger?

The body runs, lusts, hungers, creates wastes...

And I must watch it all, be a passenger to its whims.

The passage of time is inevitable.

The passage of the body, doubly so.

It will do as it pleases and I will watch, ever dutifully on...

Why not then love the body?

It will always be there.

Does the jockey not love his horse?

It will have its way and I will be along for the ride.

All-American Hero

[This article was inspired by Christy Lemire's work in the American Way magazine]

During my travels this month, I took the time to read the feature article in the American Airlines magazine, American Way. The article presented an interview with actor Chris Evans, and I was impressed by the portrait of his personality that was painted in the piece.

Here is a guy who plays a quintessential American comic book hero, Captain America, the embodiment of down-to-earth and clear-hearted masculinity. Interestingly, Evans' personality reveals an everyday heroism beyond his comic book persona, the success, confidence, and positivity of the sensitive man.

Lemire, the article's author, applauds Evans' "openness" as he is "surprisingly candid...thoughtful, boisterous and sometime profane." Evans "radiates confidence and charisma" all the while willing to discuss his personal quirks, flaws, and demons.

Evans' words mirrored many of my own experiences. He struggles with a tendency to overanalyze and complains of being a "big sap." He loves the simple things like Disney World and spending time with hometown friends and his sister's kids. He speaks in terms of gratefulness for life's opportunities.

His advice to his past self is refreshingly simple.  Too much overthinking can lead to painful self doubt. He wishes he could just tell his past self, "Shhh!" Moreover, he explains as a natural philosopher would, "Brains are just noisy. We analyze the past, we worry about the future. Our consciousness is very spread out, and as a result, it's hard to stay present. And if you can kind of stay present and know that that's all that you have in life - life is just a series of nows - if you can kind of surrender to that, you can never lose."

Other than being impressed by Evans' ability to speak to his sincere and sensitive side and willingness to prioritize relationships with the family and friends, I was intrigued by what he noticed about his character, Steve Rogers, or Captain America. He says, "he's not that funny; he puts himself last, and I think any man who is aggressively trying to prioritize the concerns of others before his own could potentially be interpreted as boring on-screen."

This observation rings true to an experience I think many well-meaning men struggle with off-screen as well. When selfishness and macho-maleness seems to be cheerleaded by society as a way for men to get attention, how is the deeply compassionate and generous man supposed to behave? Does he stay true to his feelings and risk coming across as boring or confusing to others because he does not play into society's expectations for his behavior? 

Maybe, men like Chris Evans exemplify the solution. It is not about being selfish or macho that makes the man, but rather the confidence the man has to own to be his own hero.  The confident and generous man does not care if he comes across as boring as he follows his own compass. The confident man also does not fear his emotional side and stereotypical feminized traits. He recognizes that a whole person stays true to all parts of himself including the often hidden and suppressed emotional side. Finally, the confident man trusts himself to being kind and generous when it is appropriate and needed, and to move on and take care of himself when it is not.

I am happy that stories like Chris Evans' are being shared and can serve as a role model for the modern man. As our access to information expands, our opportunities for self-knowledge increase.  And, thus, today's men are more than ever able to meet their "feminine" side in order to construct more complex expressions of masculinity than was ever previously possible. Being more in touch with all parts of your personality as a man is not a sacrifice, but rather the possibility of reaching the full potential of masculinity. Men like Chris Evans exemplify this possibility, true leaders and the kind of all-american hero we can admire.   

First is the Worst

The classic superhero phrase is "With great power comes great responsibility." Why is this the case? Because those who have the most, have the most to lose.

This is the problem of power.

Those who have the most power are the most dependent on others to sustain their power. The irony is that we frame power in terms of independence, the ability to do whatever we please. The reality, however, is much more complex. Yes, power allows you to do more, but it is also immensely limiting. The greater the power you have the more time you spend trying to maintain that power, which ironically pushes out all that great "doing whatever you want" stuff you imagined you would be doing.

America is a great example of the problem of power. We live in the most wealthy and militarily powerful country in the world, and, yet, we have severe problems with solving problems for our society as a whole. Racism and poverty are still huge issues. Our education and infrastructures are poor. Many metrics of our society rank us among third world countries.

Think of how fear is such a huge burden on American activity. We pour huge amounts of resources into our military and security institutions. Our political parties motivate us through fear, warning us of the next great terrorist attack, economic collapse, or immigrant takeover. What if all of that effort went into improvement rather than maintenance?  

The upper-middle class experience in America is also evidence of this problem. How often do families talk about money. Can we afford the new car or new vacation? Families argue about affording a new car, when the poor cannot even put food on the table for their family. Stinginess is epidemic among the wealthy. It has been shown through psychological study as well that the poor are more giving and cooperative than the rich, expending a much greater proportion of their income to benefiting others than the wealthy. This is not because the rich are bad people, but because human nature causes one's perspective and expectations to change when power is mixed in. The wealthy father worries and frets about which mutual fund to purchase, a good concern for one's financial future, but a worry created and draining of his attention entirely because he has to manage his growing amounts of stuff.

Even the philanthropic rich have a quandary of wanting to give, but also having to maintain their wealth in order to give. Bill Gates has pledged to give away all his wealth, BUT only after his death.

Americans are also weird in how we place the President of the United States and other politicians on this huge pedestal of power. The truth is the President only exists because a country of over 300 million people allow him to. Moreover, how much effort does any politician expend just trying to keep themselves in office? The politician is constantly worried about doing or saying the wrong thing and, thus, forces their own behavior into little boxes. How is that independence and freedom of the powerful?

The other big spheres of power in American society is corporations. We look at CEOs and their big salaries and imagine how great they have it. Is this true? Again, their entire existence is a balancing act of millions of things going right and allowing the business to function. They are slaves to both the functioning of the business and the demands of society, which can change. It might be hard to see this in the short term, but we see time and time again, the larger something gets the weaker it often gets.

Again and again, the story plays out. Man, superstar athletes have it great, right? What about when they get lifelong injuries and lose all their money due to lack of personal finance knowledge within a few years of retirement? Hollywood celebrities? That could be a great life if you like your picture taken every time you step outside your front door, constantly being asked to perform and never finding peace from the spotlight.

Power can be severely debilitating to true risk taking and creativity. Why take risks when I can just maintain what I already have? Why take risks when those risks could cause me to lose what I already have? Weakness seeps in through fear, complacency, and intransience.

We joke about first world problems, but is the humor derived from the pathetic nature of these complaints? It is "funny" to us because we live in this dreamworld of expectations that bears little resemblance to those of us who really have it bad...

What can one do about this problem? It needs to be forefront of the mind at anytime one desires more than they already have. That gaining power is the truly great risk, not losing it. Be careful what you sacrifice to have more. Always remember the great dependency that is invoked by power, the great corruption of power. Be wary of how your expectations and fears are warped by what you have and what you think you can afford to lose.

Be the best you can be for the world with the least amount of power you can.

And, always ask: What do I have to sacrifice to have more?

Perspectives on Economic Roles

There are two major perspectives on fulfilling a role in the economy. 

1) The world only cares about what it can get from you.

Exemplified by the classic Alec Bladwin lecture in Glengarry Glen Ross, this is the view that one is only as valuable as their output or contribution. "Good father? F**k you." It paints ones function in the economy as a game where how in demand you are and how much money you collect is a measure of your value.  
Be the cog in the machine and you will get work. 

One example of this idea in action is computer science and coding. I've heard countless times how in demand programmers are. Just learn to code and somebody will hire you. Seeing the benefits programmers receive in Silicon Valley (evidence of a tight labor market) backs this up.

While this viewpoint is highly mechanistic and pessimistically simplifies one's value in the economy into do or die framing, there are ways to see it in a more positive light. In order to have high quality output, you need to be meeting the needs present in society. Programmers are in demand because our society desires more technological developments and infrastructure. As such, by catering to the high demand areas in society you are catering to the needs of the society itself. 

However, we know needs are not the same as what is best for society. High frequency traders are in demand right now, but you have to tell an abstract story why HFT is beneficial for society. One could say the same about the demand for heroine producers and porn stars, both pay very well.

2) Be a creator

Sometimes it is easy to forget that a significant portion of our economic activity stems from people creating new needs for society.

This can be interpreted in terms of inventing new products or starting a new business whereby one is providing a new good or service to the marketplace. Also, it can apply to the producer of cultural products like music, books, and art. 

It is hard to say that society needed Harry Potter books before JK Rowling wrote them, but look at how successful she is.

These two perspectives are not exclusive of each other and every person can transition between or fulfill both at the same time. 

It is also worth noting that one may reject both paths and not participate at all. It is healthy for this to occur some of the time as the two perspectives above both frame humans as producers. It does not seem correct that humans should be obligated to constantly output like a machine or slave, or maybe all human activity is inherently an output of some sort or another...

Finally, the question of what is ethical activity is another wrinkle to finding your place in society. It is important to never conflate economic value with ethical value. American society falls into this temptation almost religiously by conflating wealth with merit, which is wrong. Economic success does not care about how good or bad a father you are. As you see above, you can fulfill major roles in society and take care of your material needs without thinking about ethics at all, but you need to!!