The Chemistry of Love
The powerful feelings shared by two people who are deeply attracted to one another is the stuff romantic poems and songs are made of.
As science evolves, it often belatedly proves what we already know – what is logical and a fact that no one would doubt. Well it is doing it again. Its is realizing through medical studies that love is good for our health and well-being.
Perhaps only a few of us need proof of such, but our left brain just might get a boost from knowing that it is official – feeling love and feeling loved creates beneficial chemical and hormonal states that lead to healing and good health. And scientists have discovered that love as we humans know it is spurred on by chemicals in our bodies.
The Healing Power of Intimacy
A study at Yale involved 119 men and 40 women undergoing coronary angiography. Those who felt the most loved and supported had substantially less blockages in their heart arteries than the other subjects.
A related study was made on 10 thousand married men with no prior history of angina. with high levels of risk factors, such as elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and electrocardiogram abnormalities. Those who felt their wives did not show them love, experienced almost twice as much angina as the first group, who felt their wives did show them love.
Love is Beneficial for Our Aging Process.
A study of more than 700 elderly adults showed that aging was inhibited more when they felt they were contributing to others than when they received from others. The more love and support they gave, the more they benefited physically. It appears that our emotional connections to those around us strengthen our immune system.
Initial research into the state of “falling in love” indicates that this state produces certain beneficial chemical reactions and hormonal effects. When two people are attracted to each other, a number of chemicals seem to increase.
One is PEA or phenylethylamine, which speeds up the flow of information between nerve cells. Others are dopamine, which make us feel good and norepinephrine, which stimulates the production of adrenaline. Studies on this subject are proving the benefits of loving and being loved.
When in a Loving State, Our Hearts Go Into Coherent Heart Rhythms
Research at the Institute for HeartMath in California, USA, has discovered that when we feel love, or any positive emotion such as compassion, caring, or gratitude, our heart sends messages to the brain causing the secretion of hormones that positively affect our health and emotional state.
When we are in a loving state, our hearts go into coherent heart rhythms allowing the body to go through its natural regenerative process.
When we are anxious, angry or worried, our heart’s rhythmic beating pattern becomes very incoherent inhibiting our brain’s cortex. On the other hand, when we feel emotions like love, gratitude and appreciation, our heart beats rhythmically facilitating cortical function.
It appears that heart’s rhythms directly affect our nervous system itself bringing greater harmony and balance. Our autonomic nervous system is divided into two branches, one that speeds things up and another that slows things down. When we “out of love” with negative feelings, these two systems seem to lose their harmonious cooperation.
When we are in a non-loving state or when we are angry at someone, the two halves of the nervous system get out of sync with one another. It’s like they’re fighting each other: one tries to speed the heart up as the other tries to slow it down. This is what creates this very erratic heart rhythm. This in turn creates further emotional tension in our nervous system and mind.
Love and Compassion, Boost our Immune System.
For example, when subjects in an experiment felt angry for one five-minute period, their cortisol levels increased. Cortisol, known as the stress hormone, suppresses the immune system. As a result, these subjects experienced suppressed secretory immunoglobulin A (IgA), an important antibody, for up to six hours after feeling angry for only five minutes.
Secretory IgA serves as the human body’s first line of defense against disease. Thus, lower than normal levels of IgA, leave us more susceptible to colds, flu and respiratory disease.
On the other hand, when these subjects felt love and appreciation for just one five-minute period, their secretory Iga rose significantly. Scientists noticed that while the rise in IgA spikes after feeling love for five minutes and then drops off, it then begins a slow rise that continues for many hours afterward.
Using Positive Visualization to Aid in Anti-aging
A few years ago, researchers at the Institute of HeartMath used positive visualization and inner cultivation of positive emotions to teach 30 people how to feel love in a conscious manner.
One month later, they measured the study subjects’ levels of both cortisol and DHEA, known as the anti-aging hormone. The measurement of those two hormones is considered to be a very good measure of stress and aging. If they are out of balance, with high cortisol and low DHEA, we will have rapid aging.
They found that the cortisol levels for the whole group had decreased 23 percent while the group’s DHEA levels increased 100 percent across the board. It appears that learning to love and dwelling on feelings of love brings those hormones into balance positively affecting our health.
Endorphins Help Us Form Loving Relationships
Candace Pert, Ph.D., a research professor at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and author of Molecules of Emotion, Why You Feel the Way You Do (Scribner, 1997), reports that endorphins, which are associated with the feeling of bliss, help us “bond” with other people.
In other words, they help us form loving relationships. Endorphins are “natural endogenous morphine-like substances that we produce in our brain, sex organs, gut, immune system, and heart,” Endorphins are known to create a positive, bliss-like feelings.
Feeling Love and Feeling Loved is Literally Health-Building and Healing.
In other research the “neurobiology of parental love.” In this and other studies it has been found that hormone oxytocin – associated with feelings of love for a child and also with breastfeeding – has powerful effects on the body, mind and behavior. It is nature’s antidepressant and anti-anxiety hormone. It creates feelings of calm and a sense of connection, so it actually shapes how we view the world. It also reduces cravings, which makes it the key to healing addictions of all kinds.
As we mature from alienation, anger and bitterness to compassion, love and gratitude, our health is greatly improved. Much more will be affirmed in the coming years about how beneficial it is for us to be loved and to equally love and appreciate others and life itself. As mentioned in the beginning, we do not really need science to tell us this, but perhaps we need to be reminded.
…. Love and light, Christina
