Puppy love makes teenagers lose the plot

16:06 14 August 2007 by Roxanne Khamsi

Adolescents who claim they are "madly in love" might not be too far
off the mark: a new study suggests that they show almost manic
behaviours.

Serge Brand of the Psychiatric University Clinics in Basel,
Switzerland, and his colleagues surveyed 113 teenagers at around 17
years of age, asking them to complete questionnaires about their
conduct and mood and to keep a log of their sleep patterns. Of
those, 65 indicated they had recently fallen in love and experienced
intense romantic emotions.

The lovestruck teenagers showed many behaviours resembling
"hypomania" - a less intense form of mania. For example, they
required about an hour less sleep each night than teens who didn't
have a sweetheart. They were also more likely to report acting
compulsively, with 60% saying they spent too much money compared
with fewer than 30% of teenagers who were not in love.

Moreover, the lovestruck teens were more than twice as likely to say
they had lots of ideas and creative energy. Worryingly, they were
also more likely to say they drove fast and took risks on the road.

"We were able to demonstrate that adolescents in early-stage intense
romantic love did not differ from patients during a hypomanic
stage," say the researchers. This leads them to conclude that
intense romantic love in teenagers is a "psychopathologically
prominent stage".

They add that psychiatrists should take this information into
account when assessing adolescent patients who are having trouble
sleeping and are showing other behavioural changes.

The symptoms of hypomania overlap with those of mania, which is
diagnosed as bipolar disorder when accompanied by periods of
depression.

Journal reference: Journal of Adolescent Health (DOI:
10.1016/j.adohealth.2007.01.012)