A doctor has warned that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are reducing the amount of time that people spend in real face-to-face contact with others, possibly leading to an increase in serious health risks such as cancer or dementia.
Writing in Biologist, the journal of the Institute of Biology, Dr. Aric Sigman references the importance of oxytocin – ‘the cuddle chemical’, in how our bodies and minds respond to social interaction. Apparently, the hormonal changes (including production of oxytocin) and other chemical reactions going on inside our bodies are less when interacting ‘virtually’ such as on social networking sites or via e-mail.
As readers of this blog will know, the production of oxytocin in the body has been linked to a reduction in stress levels, particularly through it’s relationship to cortisol, a key stress hormone. If less face-to-face contact means less oxytocin, it’s not implausible to speculate that substituting real social interaction for the virtual sort, might indeed be damaging to one’s health.
I wonder if Dr. Sigman would consider communication via webcam might count a little more as ‘real’ social interraction. Also, what about the many people suffering from social anxiety problems who find too much real interraction to be damagingly stressful? It’s also interesting to note that several years ago, Dr. Sigman apparently also warned that watching television for just a few minutes a day might damage brain cells and lead to dementia. Nethertheless, the Doctor’s claim, and its wide exposure in today’s headlines, is another example of how oxytocin is becoming firmly associated with social and physical well-being.
The Times reports today that a passionate kiss releases a surge of oxytocin into the brain, making a lover feel happy, excited or relaxed. A study at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania found that kissing reduced the levels of cortisal (a stress hormone) in both the male and female participants, raised the levels of oxytocin in the male volunteers, but unexpectedly, not the women.
This was an unexpected result but Hill and her co-researchers believe the fact that the tests were carried out in an unromantic campus health centre also played a part. Over the past year they have run the tests again in a softer setting complete with romantic background music.
I wouldn’t call it unexpected at all. From what is becoming manifestly clear, oxytocin is a chemical produced by the brain in order to promote long-term bonding. In an unromantic setting, it would clearly not be in a female’s interest to establish such bonding as a result of a sexual encounter. Of course, romance doesn’t play such a huge part in the male sexual response, thus it is no surprise that a man’s oxytocin levels can rise even in such an artificial lab style setting.
A study published recently in the Journal of Theoretical Biology warned that women seeking committed males should avoid having sex on the first date. The reason? The rush of Oxytocin released into the female brain after sex can trick her into bonding too early with the man, before she has had a chance to weigh up his suitability as a long term mate.
Dr. Lane Strathearn, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, explains the role of Oxytocin in the process :
“Oxytocin is a critical hormone produced during breast-feeding that promotes and reinforces maternal behavior. Animal studies have shown that this hormone is critical for the initiation of maternal behaviors in animals. It may be that breast-feeding stimulates oxytocin production in the brain, helping to develop the attachment relationship of the mother and her baby. Or the factors that help shape the development of the oxytocin system in the brain may predispose to successful breast-feeding and nurturance of the baby.”
The possibilities of the artificial application of Oxytocin in helping to reduce child abuse are obvious.
A leading neuroscientist has predicted that research on the effects of Oxytocin will lead to the development of love potions in the near future. Pointing to growing evidence of the role that the hormone plays in producing feelings of empathy and in social bonding, Dr Larry Young claims that oxytocin nasal sprays will soon be available to couples to assist in maintaining a loving relationship, as well as to treat interpersonal relationship disorders such as autism.
“I don’t think that it’s overstating it,” Dr. Young said. “As we know more about the chemistry…. I think it is very likely that we’ll be able to tweak our emotions, like love, through neurochemistry. We already tweak our consciousness with lots of other things: alcohol, drugs. If we could get the right mixture, we could enhance love, or turn it off.”
Dr. Young added a note of caution – if a chemical like Oxytocin can switch love on, another chemical could equally turn it off.
I thought it would be useful to summarise why Oxytocin is attracting so much scientific and media interest.
Oxytocin is a hormone, and therefore, a naturally occurring substance produced by the human body. Women have this hormone in their systems to a greater level than men, and it has been found to increase during and after child birth, giving scientists the first indication that the hormone may play a role in the psychological bonding between mother and child. Further research has found increased levels of Oxytocin are associated with feelings of less stress and greater trust and empathy, leading the hormone to earn the media tag of ‘the love hormone’ or ‘the cuddle hormone’.
There has recently been an explosion of research across various institutes across the world seeking to confirm the role of Oxytocin in creating empathic psychological states and its consequent possible benefits in treating psychological problems ranging from social anxiety to autism and schizophrenia.
It is unlikely that we will be seeing Oxytocin drugs or pills anytime soon, as it has been found that the only effective delivery method to get the hormone inside the blood stream is to inhale it through the nose. Thus, it is likely that any Oxytocin medical or commercial uses of Oxytocin in the near future will come in the form of Oxytocin nasal sprays.
Here is a brief list of what Oxytocin Nasal Sprays might do for individuals and for society :
Reduce social anxiety and shyness in individuals
Treat the symptoms of Autism and asperger’s syndrome
Treat the secondary and possibly even the primary symptoms (delusions) of paranoid schizophrenics
Help couples maintain relationships
Reduce levels of stress
Increase attractiveness to the opposite sex
Help businessmen make sales (by increasing trust and empathy)
Help people to pass interviews
Reduce anti-social behaviour in schools, crowds etc
Be (misused) by advertisers and politicians seeking to ‘sell’ their goods or promises
It’s not difficult to see why interest in Oxytocin is growing, not only are there big bucks to be made from successful commercial and medical applications, the hormone could have radical effects on society and culture itself. If you think back to the changes wrought in the 1960′s due to the widespread use of mood altering drugs such as LSE and consider that Oxytocin might become a safe and legal substance providing the positive social effects and more from such drugs, without the negative ones, then we really could be on the brink of a new flower power era.
A study carried out by the University of Michigan found that caregivers tended to have increased life expectancy. What is interesting about this study is that the results have been interpreted as indicating that the physiological benefits associated with caregiving bring are responsible for the increase and that those physiological benefits are caused by an increase in oxytocin.
Brown believes that the decreased risk of death comes from physiological benefits from caregiving instead of psychological ones. The authors suggest that stress regulation may play a role in this benefit. Helping others is associated with a release of oxytocin, a hormone that may help buffer the effects of stress, Brown explained.
We can talk about the possible medical benefits of using Oxytocin nasal sprays to treat disorders such as autism and schizophrenia but 9 out of 10 men want to know : will Oxytocin make me attractive to women?
Raise the Oxytocin levels of you and your partner in the stressful Christmas period by making sure you touch and sweet talk each other every day.
“Everyone knows how important it is to spend time with their partner, but 24 hours can go by and you realize you’ve barely noticed each other,” says sexologist Trina Read, author of Till Sex Do Us Part.
“During times of big stress, dealing with all the stuff around the holidays, make sure you touch your partner every day because it raises oxytocin levels.”
More evidence of the role that Oxytocin plays in regulating social behaviour has been uncovered by researchers at the University of Zurich. By giving a dose of the hormone Oxytocin to arguing couples via a nasal spray, they found that the stress hormone Cortisol would be reduced and that conflict levels were less than in those couples merely given a placebo.
