Tag Archive for 'oxytocin'

Pucker up – kissing is good for you

Published on June 22, 2012 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Believe it or not, there is a field of study for that universal gesture of love we call kissing. It’s called philematology. The science of kissing brings enjoyable insights into the delivering power of this romantic expression.

Researchers claim that kissing creates many physical and emotional reactions and provides us with a strong diagram of chemical attraction. They say it can bring a therapeutic boost to the mind, heart and soul.

According to a 2009 study led by Wendy Hill, Ph.D., professor of neuroscience at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., the intimate biology of kissing seems to be what the doctor ordered to soothe away tension.

In this study, Dr. Hill measured levels of oxytocin, which is a hormone that is responsible for bonding. She also measured cortisol, a hormone that is dispensed in response to stress. She used 15 heterosexual couples that were in serious relationships as participants in the study. Cortisol levels decreased in all the couples after they kissed and held hands for 15 minutes. Even better, the longer the couple had been together, the deeper the cortisol fell.

Joy Davidson, a sex and relationship therapist in New York City, is not surprised that kissing brings such a benefit to the mind, heart and soul. She says, “Biologically, the lips are more sensitive and have a greater number of receptors for transmitting messages to the brain than most other areas of the body.”

Now just any ordinary kiss will bring all these benefits. A long, intimate type of kiss is best to get the most stress-reducing effect, so make try to make every kiss one to remember. So cuddle up to the one you love and reap the benefits for your heart and soul.

Study reveals that massage does more than just relax you

Published on October 12, 2010 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Most of us know how wonderful a good massage can feel, and  I’m sure that a lot of us have wondered if it actually benefits us other than just helping us relax. Researchers must have pondered this question as well, because they have recently completed a study on the benefits of massage.

The researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles signed up 53 healthy adults for the study.  A 45-minute massage of deep-tissue Swedish massage was given to 29 of the randomly selected adults. The other, not so lucky, 24 were assigned a session of light massage.

Intravenous catheters were fitted on all the participants so that blood samples could be taken right before the massage and up to an hour after the massage. The researchers, who were sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health, were amazed when they discovered that only one session of massage resulted in biological changes.

The volunteers who were given the Swedish massage had a substantial reduction in levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood and saliva and in arginine vasopressin, which is a hormone that can lead to increases in cortisol. They also had more lymphocytes, which are white blood cells, that are an element in the immune system. Most of us know that the immune system helps to keep us healthy.

The volunteers of the light massage group encountered more increases in oxytocin, a hormone linked with contentment, than the Swedish massage group, and larger decreases in adrenal corticotropin hormone, which stimulates the adrenal glands to supply cortisol.

Dr. Mark Hyman Rapaport, a lead author and chairman of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Cedars-Sinai, called the conclusion “very, very intriguing and very, very exciting – and I’m a skeptic.”

The study was published online in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.