Why do you feel butterflies in your stomach when you're on a date?
Here's the biology behind the butterflies sensation people get when they’re falling in love or in high-pressure situations.
(Photo: Pexels/Vjapratama)
Feeling butterflies – a sudden, giddy roiling in the pit of the gut – happens to everyone and can occur in high-pressure situations: falling in love, walking into a job interview or waiting your turn at karaoke.
Here’s what experts say is behind that famous fluttering sensation.
THE GUT-BRAIN CONNECTION
The brain and the gut are in constant communication via an intricate network of nerve fibres called the vagus nerve. This information superhighway, as it’s often called, runs between the brain and the abdomen and is the reason our thoughts affect our guts so uniquely. Recall from high school biology that it took merely the thought of food for Pavlov’s dog to begin salivating.
The gut, which is sometimes called the “second brain” because it contains more than 100 million nerve cells that send and receive messages to and from the brain, can dramatically affect our thoughts, too, said Laurie Keefer, a professor of psychiatry and medicine in the division of gastroenterology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
“The bacteria in our gut have the ability to signal the emotional centers in our brain,” Dr Keefer said. “They can affect how anxious we are, how depressed we are and even our resilience – how adaptable we are to change.”
Most of this signalling happens unconsciously, said Dr Michael Gershon, a professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University. That is, of course, until you’re debating whether you should lean in for a first kiss with your Valentine’s date and suddenly your stomach is fluttering.
WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
While it may be tempting to assume that those butterflies are driven by love, Dr Keefer said, in reality, that roiling in the gut is a byproduct of a less romantic but nonetheless inevitable part of the whole process: Emotional stress.
In a 1949 study that investigated how different types of stress affected the gut, for instance, researchers peered into the colons of healthy medical students using a hollow metal tube with a light and lens at the end. With one student, the researchers suggested that they had discovered a cancer in his rectum (when in reality, his colon looked normal). As they relayed these false findings – even showing the student a “biopsy” of his tumour, which was actually a piece of potato – they saw the student’s colon begin to spasm. After they revealed their hoax, and the student realised he did not have cancer after all, his colon immediately relaxed.
Scientists have also shown that loud, cacophonous words and sounds played in different ears at the same time can disturb the rhythms of our guts, as can – as shown in one of my own experiments – telling a lie, or discussing uncomfortable life events such as being rejected by a love interest.
It would be challenging to do similar studies during a romantic dinner date (imagine having a probe in your colon while trying to make small talk at a restaurant), but scientists have used decades of research on gut-brain communication to theorise about why dating can trigger butterflies in the gut.
Yvette Tache, a neurobiologist and professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has been studying how stress affects the communication between the gut and the brain since the 1980s. When you’re eager for your date to go well or are unsure of how your date feels about you, that stress can cause the brain to release a molecule called corticotropin-releasing hormone, which ramps up adrenaline in the “fight-or-flight” response. (This hormone is also responsible for a racing heart when the meal is over and your date twiddles with their keys by their door – will you be invited in or is the evening finished?) At the same time, this molecule boosts cortisol, a hormone that rises in the first few months of falling in love, but later drops as a relationship stabilises.
The sensation of “butterflies” likely occurs because, on top of everything else, this molecule also delays our stomachs from emptying, while simultaneously speeding up our colons, Dr Tache said. This might happen as a means of protection, she said: Our intestines become more permeable – or “leaky” – under stress, which could be harmful if it caused waste from inside our guts to enter our bloodstreams. In theory, she said, halting our stomachs and emptying out our colons might minimise the chances of that happening.
QUELLING THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
If butterflies catch you at an inopportune moment, there are a few ways to trick your gut into returning to normal, Dr Keefer said.
One solution is to use deep breathing techniques such as “box breathing” – when you slowly breathe in through your nose for a count of four, then hold your breath for a count of four, then exhale for another count of four and then hold your breath for another count of four. With each four-count, imagine drawing the side of a square until you visualise a completely closed box.
People who have the most common disorders of the gut-brain connection, such as chronic indigestion or irritable bowel syndrome, know that butterflies can become a real problem, especially if they lead to belly pain or the urge to defecate. In such situations, prescription medications like tricyclic antidepressants can help prevent the gut from overreacting. Cognitive behavioural therapy and meditation have also been shown in studies to help in the long-term.
Still, occasional butterflies in the gut are usually a harmless phenomenon, even if they do add a little chaos to a first date. Everyone has moments when their stomach and bowels seem to have a mind of their own – and in a way, they do.
But as with any relationship, sometimes the brain and the gut just need to work on their communication.
By Trisha Pasricha © 2022 The New York Times
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
