Another interesting discovery helps us to realize that the roots of many problems may totally differ from our ideas about them.
If you dislike most people you meet, it may simply lay in… the lack of oxytocin! Check out what a study says:
“A chemical best known for cementing the bond between a mother and her newborn child could also play a part in social behaviour. A new study shows that men and women who inhale a whiff of the hormone oxytocin rate strangers as more attractive.
When oxytocin courses through our blood, “we are more likely to see people we don’t know in a more positive light,” says Angeliki Theodoridou, a psychologist at the University of Bristol, UK, who led the new study.This effect adds to the hormone’s known role in human relationships. One study found that oxytocin levels spike after new mothers look at or touch their newborns and may help bonding.
Other work has hinted at the importance of oxytocin in social situations between adults too. People administered the hormone make overly generous offers in an economic game that measures trust, while men who got a dose of oxytocin proved better at remembering the faces of strangers a day later, compared to subjects who got a placebo.
In the latest trial, Theodoridou’s team tested 96 men and women in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial. After participants got either a spritz of oxytocin or a placebo, they rated pictures of 48 men and women for attractiveness and 30 for trustworthiness. Her team also tested for mood. No matter their sex or mood, volunteers who received oxytocin rated male and female strangers as both more attractive and trusting.”
I always have a feeling that these hormones, however powerful they may be, are after all self-produced and can be stimulated my ourselves. So basically if we find the key to increase, say, oxytocin then imagine how many society problems can be solved!!
Thus if we follow the logic of the oxytocin nature, we can come to an interesting result: Since this particular chemical is best known for cementing the bond between a mother and her newborn child, a simple cultivating of motherly qualities in an individual may increase the hormone level! I think it would do good to both women and men.
🙂 axinia
(image by me)
axinia
1000 petals by axinia 
I don’t think anyone needs an extra dose of oxytocin, Axinia 😯 Unless, of course, that person has an endocrinal problem that prevents the normal levels of the hormone from being released into the bloodstream 😐 And NO, I don’t think any amount of extra oxytocin is going to solve any of society’s problems, it may even make them worse 😯
I sometimes think that medical researchers are unnecessarily overdoing themselves, trying to go beyond what is required of them, when many other fields are crying out for their attention. There is a section of the medical research community that thinks any human social problem can be solved by ingestion or injection of medicines. It will never work as it was never meant to be that way. All they will end up doing to is make humans overly dependent on completely unnecessary medicines, reducing the capability of the human body to function in a normal way. In the long run, it would be detrimental to the whole of humanity.
An example is how some societies are overly dependent on anti-depressant drugs. Instead of solving the problem, it’s only making things worse 😦
Raj, the anti-depressant point is a good one. It does not really help. And I am not supporting the medication against social or psychological problems here 🙂
I just thought that generally the increase of this very hormone might help people to like each other more…why not? and why do you think ti will make society’s problems worse??
I’m not too sure if an increase of this hormone is going to make people like each other more, Axinia. Even if it does, the effect may only be temporary, so the outcome may not be as highly optimistic as the researchers have shown.
Think of the oxytocin addiction that would happen if people believe that taking this hormone improves their mood and makes them more sociable. Instead of trying to BE more friendly and sociable, they may just think of jabbing themselves with oxytocin to improve their friendliness and sociability 😯 It’s just like people “drowning their sorrow” in drink. Instead of overcoming their problems, they seek a shortcut that doesn’t really work.
Moreover, endocrinology is very complex and science hasn’t really understood it completely. Oxytocin seems to naturally function differently in men and women to some extent. I bet oxytocin has many more effects than just making people like others, so the extra dose may also affect the balance of hormones in the body.
Заголовок меня особенно впечатлил – последние 3 недели я усиленно получала окситоцин – внутримышечно ;))) его применяют как сокращающее, а уколы, между прочим, довольно болезненны. Не знала, что он, оказывается…ммм….такой полезный :))
ну и как? есть ли повышенная симпатия ко всему миру? или вообще что-то повышенное?
Я как раз думала над этим, читая твой пост 🙂 и пришла к выводу, что нет – пожалуй, все было как всегда: бОльшая часть людей и так вызывает у меня симпатию. Был, правда один случай за это время: мне нужно было получить справку у заведующей отделения, и люди, которые ее знали, предупреждали: “о, она очень вредная женщина!”
Я же отвечала, что мне она показалась довольно милой и упорно не хотела верить плохим словам. Справку “вредная женщина” выдала мне без вопросов :)) вот что значит позитивное отношение к людям 🙂
who needs it? one thing I am sure of..not me…
what makes people really happy….this big dilemma. I wonder if people really know what happiness actually mean.
An associate professor in social psychology at the University of Virginia says that human happiness derives neither from external validation nor solely from within, but from “between”: through the relationships created by love, work,
and “something larger than yourself”—whether it’s a religious group, a volunteer organization, or a political campaign. “If happiness comes from between,” Haidt says, “then oxytocin is the hormone of between. It’s the catalyst that helps bond people together.”
Oxytocin this so called ‘love/cuddle’ hormone assumingly affects behaviors such as trust, empathy and generosity….is released in the body naturally during childbirth and when engaging in sexual relations, so far so good!!!….but the other side of the coin> it also affects opposite behaviors, such as jealousy and gloating
Participants in an experiment who inhaled the synthetic form of the hormone displayed higher levels of altruistic feelings, and it is supposed that the hormone plays an important role in the formation of relationships between people.
Following the earlier results of experiments with oxytocin, scientists began to examine the possible use of the hormone as a medication for various disorders, such as autism. The results of the present study show that the hormone’s undesirable effects on behavior must be examined before moving ahead
extra dose of chemical supplements? definitely not for me!
as far as I know- people can’t just take oxytocin pills to increase blood levels because oxytocin doesn’t cross the body’s “blood/brain barrier,” except in the form of nasal sprays (and long-term use of oxytocin spray can damage our brain).
The good news>We can all raise our oxytocin levels, every day:
meditation, SY, connecting deeply with another human being, worshiping, loving a pet, participating in a group that you enjoy, engaging in loving sex, making music….
The bottom line!!! we, naturally, produce oxytocin when we feel love
‘The love you take is equal to the love you make.’
thank you mirel, that was the point I actually wanted to make :)))
really interesting thing Axinia… but is it not depend on how they receive or treat us???
ur DP is very nice… 🙂 🙂
Wow, I maybe need 4 more extra doses lol
Thank you Axinia and Mirel, I think you’ve made the best points 🙂