The Sex & Love Connection
The Sex & Love Connection
The Power of Oxytocin
We have talked about how dopamine can break couples apart, but there’s also something holding couples together…at least at first. The neurochemical that binds couples together is oxytocin, the "cuddle hormone" or "bonding hormone."
Without it, we could not fall in love. Falling in love is associated with a soup of neurochemicals - like adrenaline, which makes your heart race, and dopamine, which makes you crave your beloved.
But the heartwarming, loving, "gushy" aspects of love are due to oxytocin. It is the "unconditional love" hormone associated with nurturing and generous affection.
Oxytocin has various functions in the body, such as inducing labor contractions and milk ejection, but from evolutionary biology’s perspective, its main evolutionary function is to bond us to our children for life. It also serves to bond us to our mate…at least long enough to produce a child and (if we're lucky) get it on its feet.
Friendships are also built on oxytocin, and can be quite deep bonds. Yet, what happens to friendships that turn into sexual relationships? Often things change for the worse. This change is an excellent example of the neurochemical shift or hangover kicking in. As things go sour, something is interfering with oxytocin’s bonding effects.
The good news is that oxytocin is the loophole in biology’s plans for our love lives. This is the secret that the ancient sacred-sexuality sages stumbled upon. Making love with lots of affection, without the dopamine-driven highs and lows of conventional sex, seems to keep oxytocin levels high.
The more oxytocin you produce, the more receptive you are to it. This is the opposite of dopamine. Addicts need more and more of a drug, which, of course, which actually means they need more and more dopamine.
Luckily you don’t need an ever-increasing "fix" of oxytocin to maintain the same gushy feeling. In fact, your partner just looks better and better…at least to you. This is why this practice can strengthen your bond with your mate.
When researchers injected oxytocin into the brain of a promiscuous breed of rodent, it preferred familiar partners to unfamiliar partners. Dopamine and its hangover are the keys to promiscuity, whereas oxytocin is the key to monogamy.
Oxytocin has huge benefits, both emotionally and physically. Oxytocin is the answer to the question, "What is the mechanism by which love and affection positively affect our health?"
• Oxytocin reduces cravings. When scientists administered it to rodents who were addicted to cocaine, morphine, or heroin, the rats opted for less drugs, or showed fewer symptoms of withdrawal. (Kovacs, 1998)
• Oxytocin calms. A single rat injected with oxytocin has a calming effect on a cage full of anxious rats. (Agren, 2002)
• This quality of oxytocin explains why companionship can increase longevity - even among those who are HIV positive (Young, 2004).
Or speed recovery: wounded hamsters heal twice as fast when they are paired with a sibling, rather than left in isolation (DeVries, 2004).
• It may also explain why, among various species of primates, care-giving parents (whether male or female) live significantly longer. (Cal Tech, 1998)
• Oxytocin appears be a major reason that SSRI’s [Prozac-type drugs] ease depression, perhaps because high levels of cortisol are the chief culprits in depression and anxiety disorders. (Uvnas-Moberg, 1999)
• Oxytocin increases sexual receptivity and counteracts impotence, which is why this other way of making love remains pleasurable. (Pedersen, C.A., 2002), (Arletti, 1997)
Again, notice that oxytocin reduces cravings and increases sexual receptivity. This allows making love without orgasm to be completely satisfying. The affection is always there, flowing between you and your partner.
When we tiptoe around dopamine’s highs and lows, we encourage more oxytocin receptors and actually re-wire our brain, getting pleasure from a different cocktail of neurochemicals. Understanding the power of oxytocin suggests how sexual relationships can heal.