Of course we know this about sex, the hormone of love was discovered here!
Oxytocin, the natural pituitary hormone of labor and delivery, is also the hormone of love. It is a hormone that figures prominently in all aspects of love: bonding as a couple, orgasms, being social, being maternal, and even a factor in social and other forms of anxiety. Even making suggestive eye contact has been linked to oxytocin!
Oxytocin's critical role in health and medicine was recognized early on through a young researcher who graduated from the University of Illinois, and in the year 1953 Vincent du Vigneaud was able to synthesize oxytocin and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. A few others claim to be the birthplace of the oxytocin research, but in truth we are all standing on the shoulders of giants!
We know that women differ genetically in their ability to metabolize and respond to oxytocin, and a new study has been able to link this fact with differences in how women differ in their health behaviors in pregnancy. Those with more empathy for their fetus have differing levels of the ability of cells to recognize ocytocin via it's receptors.
Oxytocin may not only solve your love life problems, but appropriate levels may be able to overall benefit your mental health. There is truth that sex can positively impact our waistline, and exactly how this happens may indeed be related to oxytocin. When this hormone of love is given to healthy volunteers, they eat less! Studies showed, the higher the oxytocin level, the less snacking!
A great night of love making will boost your love thoughts, memories and dreams. There are ways that hormones interact with each other to do this. And oxytocin boosts memory and is enhanced by estrogen: so enhancing estrogen will enhance oxytocin levels, and thus Women's Health Magazine has proclaimed that 'hugging it out' actually works! For that bedroom boost: come talk to your gyno about how your hormones can affect your thoughts, your feelings, your sexuality and perhaps your memory!