Oxytocin has been called the "love hormone" because it's famous for making people more pro-social. It's a neuropeptide and hormone that our brains naturally produce that actually has a wide range of jobs, including:
- Nudging us to be more emotionally open, more trusting, and more generous
- Playing with our memory, sometimes making it worse, and sometimes protecting it from stress. How it affects memory may also depend on our personality.
- Relieving pain for those with pain disorders, and making those without pain disorders more able to tolerate pain
You can help your brain to release more oxytocin by:
- Hugging and cuddling
- Experiencing sexual pleasure
- Feeling empathy for others
- Giving birth and breastfeeding
What is oxytocin?
You know those warm and fuzzy feelings you get when you cuddle a puppy, hug your friend, or kiss your partner? That’s oxytocin at work.
You may already have heard of oxytocin—what people have called the love hormone, cuddle hormone, or even the moral molecule. This is because oxytocin has been in the headlines, gaining a reputation for making people more trusting, generous, and even more in love. It’s a neuropeptide, meaning that it’s a protein-like molecule your brain cells use to communicate with each other. Oxytocin is also a hormone, meaning that the brain releases it into the bloodstream to communicate with the body.
Clearly, this little brain chemical has some big jobs—it plays a role in sex, childbirth, bonding, social interaction, emotions, and many other functions important to us mammals. Our brains produce it naturally, but there’s also synthetic oxytocin that is sometimes used therapeutically.
Either way, oxytocin seems to not only nudge us towards more pro-social behavior, but it can also play tricks on our minds. Let’s look at some ways that this complicated brain chemical affects the way we feel and act, and how we can coax the brain to release more of it for those warm, fuzzy feelings:
Oxytocin probably helps people to bond through openness, trust, and generosity
Oxytocin got its glowing reputation as the “love hormone” from the evidence that it seems to help us be more pro-social, more connected with others. For example, one fascinating study found that when male college students got a dose of oxytocin from a nasal spray, they were more willing to share their emotions about a painful memory with a stranger than participants who got a placebo spray.
People not only seem to trust strangers more with their emotions but also with their money when they get a dose of oxytocin.
People not only seem to trust strangers more with their emotions but also with their money when they get a dose of oxytocin. A separate study had participants play an investment game where they could entrust any amount of their money tokens to another participant, a trustee. Those who sniffed an oxytocin spray were much more likely to let the trustee hang onto their tokens. Most of this group handed over most or all of the money. In contrast, those who only got a placebo spray were less willing to trust a stranger. Only one-fifth of them handed over all of their tokens.
What about straight-up giving money to a stranger? Oxytocin might make a person more generous, too. Another study found that when people got an oxytocin nasal spray, they shared a whopping 80 percent more money with a total stranger than people who did not get the spray!
Does this mean we should all be walking around dosing ourselves and each other with oxytocin sprays? If all the traders on Wall Street got a sniff with their morning coffees, would the trading floor be less cut-throat?
It may not be that simple. There have also been studies that failed to find the same results, and none of these sensational studies can tell us about oxytocin’s effects in daily life or in the long term. Plus, we should always be careful about study findings that seem too good to be true. So, I would say that things are looking promisingly warm and fuzzy for oxytocin, but the science is not rock-solid enough yet that we should be sticking oxytocin sprays up everyone’s nose.
Oxytocin has complicated effects on memory
Besides, oxytocin is complicated—not all of its effects are perfectly positive.
It’s possible that oxytocin can actually impair memory. A study published around the same time as the trust study found that when people got a dose of oxytocin spray they performed worse on a word recall test than people who got a placebo spray.
Oxytocin had a detrimental effect on memory for people who were more willing to depend on others.
Does that mean oxytocin makes us more forgetful? It might depend on your attachment style. This refers to your pattern of bonding with other people, including the way you deal with trust, dependence, and intimacy. A recent study found that if your attachment style is more emotionally independent (that is, you find depending on others uncomfortable), oxytocin actually improves your ability to learn and recall a list of words. But oxytocin had a detrimental effect on memory for people who were more willing to depend on others.
But these two studies were only looking at short-term learning and recall. What about in the long run? Oxytocin redeems itself here. We already know that too much stress is harmful to the hippocampus, a brain area indispensable to memory formation. (This is true for us and for rats.) But if a stressed-out rat got an oxytocin spray, it seemed to protect the brain cells in their hippocampus, which helps their memory health in the long run.
Oxytocin provides pain relief
There is even better news—oxytocin may be helpful for physical pain relief.
First, it’s interesting to know that people with chronic pain, like those with fibromyalgia, naturally have lower levels of oxytocin circulating in their blood. The lower their oxytocin level, the higher they rate their pain, stress, and depressionopens PDF file . And even among healthy people, those with lower blood levels of oxytocin had lower pain tolerance.
Oxytocin has many different effects on the central nervous system.
So, scientists became curious about whether giving people oxytocin would decrease their pain levels or pain sensitivity. It did, specifically for those with chronic migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic back pain, and even cancer pain. For people without pain disorders, oxytocin made them better able to tolerate acute pain.
The amazing thing is that oxytocin potentially not only works directly on the brain’s pain processing areas, but also indirectly decreases suffering by relieving depression and anxiety related to pain. This is because oxytocin has many different effects on the central nervous system. By working through both physiological and psychological channels, oxytocin may be able to ease the vicious spiral that people get into when their pain makes them feel hopeless and anxious, which in turn worsens the pain.
How can you naturally get more oxytocin in your life?
Even though oxytocin is complicated, and the flashy headlines about its magic should be taken with a grain of salt, it’s still safe to say it’s a generally helpful chemical for our health and happiness.
Should we all be going around sniffing oxytocin sprays? Not so fast. The oxytocin products that you can buy online claim all sorts of magical benefits, but the research really hasn’t tested how and whether they work. There is also no regulation of these sprays. I have a rule against huffing substances that are not specifically prescribed by a doctor.
But worry not, we can get doses of oxytocin in natural ways. Here are some things you can do to get more into your bloodstream:
- Hug and cuddle. Comforting physical touch is a sure way to fire up the oxytocin—between parents and children, between couples, and of course, between humans and dogs. So, get your cuddle on!
- Have sex (or love yourself). Sexual pleasure is one of the most effective ways to get a big shot of oxytocin. Whether you’re with a partner or helping yourself, oxytocin can skyrocket with orgasm. Bonus points for women who have multiple orgasms.
- Watch an emotional movie. When we feel empathy towards others, we’re putting ourselves emotionally in their shoes. A research study showed that inducing empathy by watching emotional video clips raised people’s oxytocin levels, which in turn led them to be more generous. (Might I recommend the first 5 minutes of “Up” for a potent boost?)
- Give birth and breastfeed. These are obviously not options for everyone, but if you happen to be planning on giving birth in the future, you get to look forward to the rush of oxytocin that you’ll get in the process. This huge oxytocin release does everything from causing uterine contractions, which starts the process of birthing the baby, to getting the body ready for breastfeeding. The oxytocin will also help you bond with your baby and generally give you a warm, glowing feeling.
Disclaimer
All content here is for informational purposes only. This content does not replace the professional judgment of your own mental health provider. Please consult a licensed mental health professional for all individual questions and issues.