We know that love creates chemical changes within a person; dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and testosterone all have a hand in making you fall in love, for starters. However, the idea that love can change you physiologically and physically is less well-known. Keep reading for ways your body changes when you’re in a relationship.
- Your health and fitness habits can change. Let’s say you’re dating someone who’s a huge fitness fanatic while you prefer TV to Tae Bo. She’ll probably try to convince you to go to the gym with her or he’ll introduce you to his favorite vegan place. Conversely, you may convince your S.O. to skip the gym and opt for Netflix and chill for the night. It’s no secret that partners influence each other.
- You have health similarities with your partner. Along those same lines, a 2016 study published in The Gerontologist explains that couples who have been married for a long time adapt to each other’s health. The article cites grip strength as an example because grip strength is a predictor of how long you’ll live. Cholesterol and kidneys are other indicators of how your body adapts to your partner’s. Scientists even made sure to rule out the idea that you’re just choosing someone who’s similar to you by proving that new couples (less than 20 years together) don’t have that similarity. A friend of mine also noted that her boyfriend of six years complained that he’d never been sick until he dated her, so immune systems can be affected too.
- Your tastes can change. Scientists were able to prove that the longer two people are in a relationship, the more their tastes in food and smell converge. Interestingly, however, they also found that unhappy couples like the same odors while the happier couples have very different olfactory preferences.
- Your voice gets higher. In 2011, scientists found that women tend to make their voices higher and more feminine when they speak to men they’re attracted to in order to make them seem more feminine and softer. They hypothesize it’s because it reduces “the amount of mating effort that women expend in order to attract and retain preferred mates.” Makes sense when you think about it.
- You may gain weight. If you’ve heard that women let themselves go after they get married, there may be some truth to the old wives’ tale. A 2016 study proved that “[cohabitors] and married respondents tend to weigh more.
- You might live longer. You see all of these people living until they’re 90 or 100. While modern medicine is probably the main recent, researchers from the Duke University Medical Center have discovered that marriage can help you avoid premature death if you’re stably married during your midlife years. Other research has discovered that married men may actually have stonger hearts and have lower odds of vascular disease. Yet another study has also shown that marriage helps strengthen a man’s bones when they’re married at 25 years old.
- You’ll feel less pain. Love triggers the feel-good hormones in your body, which you also get when you work out. These hormones (dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, etc.) help reduce any pain you may feel. A 2010 Standford University study also came to that conclusion. If only we can make “love” into a tablet.
- You may have trouble sleeping. Thoughts of your loved ones could literally keep you up at night. If your partner gives you butterflies, it’s really just your hormones going crazy and keeping you awake. So, the best way to get a good night’s sleep is to stop thinking about your S.O.
- Your interests may align with your S.O.’s. You’ll find that when you’re in a relationship, you may change your mannerisms, values, habits, or fashion style to match your partner. When you spend so much time with someone and you become very intimate them, it makes sense that your identity shifts to incorporate him or her into it.
