Oxytocin

It's easy to lose yourself in the early stages of love, but a new study says we don't actually lose our minds.

Oxytocin, the love hormone, makes people more trusting of others, but it doesn't make us trust people we otherwise wouldn't. To determine this, men played a trust game. Some men inhaled a trust-enhancing oxytocin spray, and they proved more trusting of strangers than men who smelled placebos; however, when there was a reason to doubt others, like hearing a stranger had history of violent crime, both groups exhibited similar levels of trust.

Researchers concluded the love hormone won't delude us into foolishness. Yet suitors with a dubious history — say a past of violent crime? — don't exactly broadcast it on first dates. And while I don't have an hormone-sniffing study to prove it, I'd say it's hard to break trust once it mixes with lust.

We have long known that a loving touch can soothe a stressed out child, but recent research found that hearing a mother's voice over the phone can have almost the same effect. A recent study found that after a stressful episode the feel good brain chemical oxytocin rose and stress hormone cortisol fell in almost equal amounts in both girls who were physically comforted by their mothers and girls who were comforted by their mothers over the phone. Nice to know that loving words can soothe almost as much as a hug. The girls involved in the study were all under 12 years of age and had yet to enter the volatile teenage years when mother-daughter relationships can become emotionally fraught. Next time you feel stressed, dial the phone to find comfort in a loving voice. If calling your mother is anxiety producing, skip that call and dial a friend. Who is on your emotional support speed dial list?

I'm not embarrassed to admit it: no matter how old I get, sometimes I just need to talk to my mom. I call her to share good news, to whine, to vent, to admit things I'm too self-conscious to share with anyone else. Now, science proves I'm not just a big wuss.

In a new study of mothers, daughters, and hormones, researchers discovered that hearing a mother's voice on the phone can provide the same soothing, stress-relieving effect as a hug. (Interestingly, it turns out therapy by phone may work, too.) It's one of the many talents of oxytocin, the so-called "cuddle hormone," which aids mother-child bonding at birth and makes men more empathetic. In the study, girls ages 7 to 12, girls were put into stressful situations, such as giving a speech, then comforted three different ways: by a mom hug, by a mom phone call, and "by watching a film deemed emotionally neutral, the March of the Penguins."

The girls who were physically comforted and comforted by a phone call saw similar increases in oxytocin and decreases in cortisol. Basically, the stress-lessening effect was the same, regardless of physical distance. No conclusions were reached regarding the effect of watching March of the Penguins while sitting in your mom's lap.

So call your mom and tell her the news! Posting a link on her Facebook wall doesn't count.

Take a snort, get more cuddly. No, I'm not talking about a new designer nightclub drug, but a new study of how the hormone oxytocin can make men more empathetic.

The same hormone that is elevated during sex, brings on labor pains during childbirth, stimulates the production of breast milk, and aids mother-child bonding may also help men get more in touch with other people's emotions.

In a fascinating study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, volunteers were given an inhaled nasal spray containing the hormone, then shown photos that were likely to trigger emotions, such as "a crying child, a girl hugging her cat, and a grieving man." Half the men got the spray, and another half received a placebo:

Those who had the hormone spray had markedly higher levels of empathy — of a similar magnitude to those only usually seen in women who are naturally more sensitive to the feelings of others.

Women's hormones get blamed for a lot of things, but it seems our oxytocin is a help, not a hindrance. But don't expect to be able to rush out and buy the cuddle drug for your boyfriend just yet; there are far more pressing applications for this potential psychiatric medication first, so read more