Having conflicts with friends? Facing relationship issues or disputes in the family? Do you often feel stressed and aggressive? Reluctant about socializing with your near and dear ones? Do you feel sex with your partner is mechanical? Then it’s time to increase your oxytocin levels!
When the stress hormone cortisol increases, oxytocin levels decrease and vice versa. Stress is the major cause of oxytocin deficiency in our bodies.
Oxytocin is derived from the Greek words “oxys” (quick) and “tokos” (birth), meaning “quick birth”. This hormone is released during childbirth and breastfeeding and helps you form a deep bond between mother and child. Hence, it is also called the bonding hormone.
In adults, it helps in social interactions, developing attachment, and friendships. When released by the brain in an adequate amount oxytocin facilitates – prosocial behavior, increases empathy, trust, kindness, generosity, and compassion.
This hormone is also a wonderful stress-buster, so when it is present at a high level, you tend to have a good mood and be in high spirits. By activating the reward centers in the brain, oxytocin improves your physical and mental well-being.
Fears, insecurities, worries no more trouble you, rather you feel a sense of trust, satisfaction, pleasure, and be more positive. Oxytocin is also called an emotion amplifier because it strengthens emotional bonds and fidelity between couples. Research shows that oxytocin can also treat depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Can you now imagine what happens when you have low oxytocin levels?
There are a plethora of benefits of oxytocin and to reap them you have to increase oxytocin levels in your brain. In this post, you will find simple, pleasurable, natural ways to boost this love hormone in your body. Let’s get started.
17 Natural Ways To Increase Oxytocin In Your Body
1. Physical Touch
When you love someone and engage in sexual intimacy, arousals and orgasms will skyrocket the oxytocin levels in your body. That doesn’t mean singles cannot reap this benefit.
Holding hands, laughing, snuggling, cuddling and hugging can also stimulate oxytocin production in your body. And you can do this with your loved ones, best buddies, or pets. The love hormone decreases stress, increases trust and empathy, and helps us form deeper connections with our close ones. This is why oxytocin is also called cuddle chemical or hug hormone or connection hormone.
2. Add Oxytocin Promoting Food To Your Diet
If you want to up your oxytocin levels naturally, then food is the quick way to start with. Eating healthy activates the vagus nerve, which then stimulates the release of more oxytocin in the brain. Food rich in amino acids, essential fats, caffeine-theanine and ginseng, omega 3 fatty acids, zinc – can boost the love hormone, libido and increase sexual desire.
Eat more figs, avocado, watermelon, mushrooms, Chamomile, spinach, green tea, nutty almonds, and coffee. You can also increase your oxytocin production by taking food rich in –
- Vitamin C
- Magnesium
- Vitamin D and
- Popping oxytocin-promoting supplements like L-Phenylalinine, L-Theanine, 5HTP, Tryptophan, L-Glutamine.
However, make sure to consult a dietician to avoid any complications later.
Related: 10+ Immunity-Boosting Foods You Should Have More Often
3. Express Your Feelings
Oxytocin is a superb chemical that increases your emotional connection with others. When you spend time with your loved ones and express how you feel about them, you can naturally release oxytocin into your body. Also, it will help your friends and family members to be kinder and more prosocial to you.
On the other hand, holding grudges increases the stress hormone cortisol that keeps you grumpy 24/7. Oxytocin can help you forgive yourself and others and forge harmonious connections with everyone.
4. Spend Time With Loved Ones
Whenever we talk or travel together with like-minded people or loved ones or anyone with whom we can share anything or everything, oxytocin is produced. You can experience similar effects in a good social event or even business meetings (provided you have an emotional connection with people there).
Oxytocin is a superb bonding agent so it also shows up when you do something good for others or when someone does a good deed for you.
5. Practise Yoga
Yoga not just accelerates mind-body awareness, but increases blood levels of oxytocin. This was first highlighted in the study from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, involving schizophrenia patients receiving yoga therapy.
Besides improvement in the endogenous plasma oxytocin levels, these patients showed a better ability to recognize emotions and socio-occupational functioning, which is usually impaired in schizophrenia. However, there is a need for more studies showing a clear correlation and link between the findings.
Related: The Benefits Of Yoga For Trauma Treatment and Mind-Body Wellness
6. Try Meditation
There is a bulk of literature available on the physical and mental health benefits of meditation. But, meditation too can pump up oxytocin levels in the body, which is a little-known fact for many people.
The next time you sit for meditation, focus on someone you love immensely. You can also call this process loving-kindness meditation because in this practice you direct your thoughts towards love, peace, goodness, and compassion towards your loved ones. As a result, you will experience less stress and more compassion towards yourself and others.
Mindfulness meditation activates the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal )-axis via the amygdala and the paraventricular nucleus, leading to the release of oxytocin in the brain.
7. Help Someone
The Bible taught us “Be kind to one another…..” Isn’t it?
But, it didn’t mention that being kind and helping someone promote oxytocin release in the body. As per the study published in the Journal of Hormones and Behavior, any sort of charitable work improves health by increasing oxytocin levels. That explains why we feel euphoric and positive when – helping the needy, guiding someone on the right path, making a sad person smile, donating a few extra dollars for charity, giving gifts, or indulging in any random act of kindness.
You will feel glad to know that being nice to others also releases two more happiness chemicals – dopamine and serotonin – according to research by Dr. IsHak. When you are generous and happy, you build a better community!
Now that it is scientifically proven, would you mind doing something nice for someone?
8. Play With Dogs
We love dogs and dogs love us. And oxytocin is at the heart of this bond. Human-animal interactions activate the oxytocinergic system. Various studies on human-animal bonds confirmed that interaction with dogs can spike the production of oxytocin levels in our body as well as in dogs.
In a 2000 study focused on animal-assisted therapy, an increase in plasma oxytocin was found in humans after 5–24 min of petting. In a 2012 study, biologist Linda Handlin found that owners of Labrador retrievers have higher levels of oxytocin (the hormone safety and trust) and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
This is why pets promote mental health and are being recommended for patients suffering from anxiety and depression.
Related: Science Confirms That Dogs Can Recognize Bad People
9. Improve The Quality Of Your Conversation
Oxytocin is a connection hormone and when you engage in activities that make you feel loved, valued, connected, the level of the hormone increases.
A good quality conversation is something that happens between parents and children, best friends, lovers, and like-minded people. It enhances social bonding, interaction, and relationships.
Active listening is the best way to make your conversations count. When you give your complete attention to people when they are pouring their hearts out, the close interaction triggers oxytocin, making you and your friend feel more connected to each other.
10. Cook And Eat With Someone You Care About
Parents eat together with children to teach them about family values and traditions. As a child eating with parents made us feel secure and loved. Don’t you agree? And how can you forget those memorable lunch breaks in school and colleges, where sharing food involved lots of fun with friends. Why does this activity give you so much pleasure?
Well, research on chimpanzees showed that sharing food can facilitate bonding and cooperation between unrelated individuals via the oxytocinergic system across social mammals. This is why eating makes you feel calm and satisfied and pushes you for social interaction and attachment.
Cooking and eating together is a wonderful method to boost oxytocin, build new connections and strengthen existing connections with people. Eat together, make new social bonds, gain some new friends!
11. Get Outside And Soak Some Oxytocin
There is rapidly growing evidence about the health benefits of nature. Hiking, walking in woods, listening to the sounds of nature (like – the chirping of birds, frogs croaking, swashing of sea waves) correlates to higher levels of oxytocin.
You can connect with nature in various ways like forest bathing, camp in the woods, having a bonfire, simply sunbathing, watching sunset or sunrise, sitting at an outdoor dining table, and so on.
Related: The Art Of Grounding: 7 Healing Benefits Of Walking Barefoot Outside
12. Intermittent Drinking
While the term “intermittent fasting” is quite popular, the term “intermittent drinking” is hardly known to people. Unlike the common recommendation by health experts – which is to drink 8 glasses of water every day, intermittent drinking is – taking breaks from drinking water and drinking up to a feeling of satiety and regulated by a mild feeling of thirst.
It doesn’t mean you have to drink less water. You can consume the same amount but less frequently – which is “intermittent bulk drinking”. This is what animals and newborns mostly do and was common for men during the hunter-gatherer period. Intermittent drinking includes water, tea, and coffee.
According to Pruimboom and Reheis (2016), when drought and “homeostatic disturbances” give rise to the feeling of thirst, the process activates the specific oxytocin-producing parts of the brain. This type of drinking boosts oxytocin signaling, recovers human trust, and increases health by reducing stress and inflammation.
13. Acupuncture
Not just a wonderful de-stressing agent, but acupuncture – the traditional Chinese practice of meditation – is also good enough in stimulating the release of oxytocin. A 2013 study showed that acupuncture can affect the synthesis, release, and action of several neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, including oxytocin.
You can also try a simple massage from a registered massage therapist to lower your stress hormones and increase your oxytocin levels in the body. Another study found that a light massage is more effective at increasing oxytocin than a deep-tissue Swedish massage. Why not try a gentle rub down?
14. Listen To Music And Sing
Music irrespective of the genre soothes your soul. But, researchers found that listening specifically to soothing music for 30 minutes significantly increases oxytocin levels in the body. When this intervention was tested on a group of patients who underwent open-heart surgery, the slow-tempo music increased both oxytocin and heart-rate variability, while there were no such changes in the control group who were simply lying on the bed.
What can be the easiest natural way to skyrocket your oxytocin levels?
Related: The Healing Power of Music: How Music Therapy Improves Mental Health
15. Watch A Movie
Sounds crazy? Ever wondered why do you feel so good after watching your favorite movie? Well, the credit goes to oxytocin.
A 2015 study showed that watching compelling narratives leads to the synthesis and release of oxytocin. Also, it impacts our beliefs, actions, and attitudes. Watch more inspiring stories and charge your brain!
16. Hypnosis
Hypnosis helps you enter into a trance-like state, where you experience increased attention, concentration, reduced peripheral awareness, and suggestibility. According to some researchers, the benefits associated with hypnosis may be due to its oxytocin-increasing effects.
Related: The Healing Practice of Self-Hypnosis: 5 Simple Steps
17. Warm And Cold Temperatures
When you expose yourself to warm temperatures or a hot environment and sweat a lot, the oxytocin-producing parts of the brain are activated. Also, exposure to a cold environment or temperature upregulates oxytocin levels in the brain. You can have a bath with lukewarm water and finish it off with 1-2 minutes of a cold shower.
As you can see oxytocin is an elixir of the social brain. You can’t control stress in life but increasing oxytocin is in your hands. Try the above-mentioned natural and effective ways to up your oxytocin levels. And you can live a peaceful, healthier, and happier life!
Are you ready?
References:
Kuchinskas, S., 2009. The chemistry of connection: How the oxytocin response can help you find trust, intimacy, and love. New Harbinger Publications. Handlin, L., Nilsson, A., Ejdebäck, M., Hydbring-Sandberg, E. and Uvnäs-Moberg, K., 2012. Associations between the psychological characteristics of the human–dog relationship and oxytocin and cortisol levels. Anthrozoös, 25(2), pp.215-228. Poulin, M.J. and Holman, E.A., 2013. Helping hands, healthy body? Oxytocin receptor gene and prosocial behavior interact to buffer the association between stress and physical health. Hormones and behavior, 63(3), pp.510-517.
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