HOW LOVE CAN HEAL PAIN
Falling in love or experiencing good love "chemistry" can turn on a flood of positive brain chemicals. Levels of these substances, which include dopamine, adrenaline and norepinephrine, increase when two people fall in love. Dopamine creates feelings of euphoria while adrenaline and norepinephrine are responsible for the "pitter patter" of the heart, restlessness and overall preoccupation that go along with experiencing love.
"Love lowers serotonin levels, which is common in people with obsessive compulsive disorders," reports Domeena Renshaw, MD, professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Loyola University. "This may explain why we concentrate on little other than our partner during the early stages of a relationship."
However, the positive chemistry of love is not limited to those in the throes of romantic love. At the core of how our bodies respond to love and affection is a hormone called oxytocin. Through carefully conducted clinical studies, researchers can now say with certainty that physical contact affects our oxytocin levels. People who get lots of hugs and other warm contact at home tend to have the highest levels of oxytocin.
Oxytocin also makes us feel good when we're close to family, and other loved ones, including pets. It does this by acting through the dopamine reward system. Dopamine is one of the main brain chemicals that plays a vital role in how we perceive pleasure.
Yet oxytocin does more than make us feel good. It actually lowers the levels of stress hormones in the body, reducing blood pressure, improving anxiety and depression, increasing tolerance for pain, lessening the amount of colds, and even speeding how fast wounds heal, just to mention a few of the benefits.
Dr. Bernie Siegel, MD, author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles, collected 57 extremely well documented cancer "miracles". A cancer miracle is defined as a situation when a person didn't die when they absolutely, positively were supposed to. Dr. Siegel learned through his interviews with these individuals that at a certain particular moment in time they decided that the anger and the depression they felt were not good choices, since they had such a little bit of time left, and so they shifted consciously to being loving, caring, no longer angry, no longer depressed, and able to talk to the people they loved. These 57 people had the same pattern. They gave up their anger, and they gave up their depression, by making a specific conscious decision to do so. And at that point the tumors started to shrink.
Researchers from Stanford University studied the link between love and pain by scanning the brains of 15 college students who all professed to being deeply in love. The eight women and seven men were placed in brain scanners that tracked their body's response to pain -- in this case a heated probe placed on the palm of the hand.
Then the researchers studied the brain's pain response under three different conditions. In one scenario, the study subject looked at a picture of an acquaintance. In another, the student looked at a picture of his or her beloved. And because other research has shown distraction also can relieve pain, the third group of students was given a distracting word task.
The findings were that the group who watched a picture of his or her beloved had the least amount of pain while the distracted group ranked second. These results add to scientists' understanding of how the brain responds to discomfort and could lead to new treatments for people suffering from chronic pain. Dr. Sean Mackey, chief of the division of pain management at Stanford and senior author of the study, said the findings support the theory that pain patients may find some relief by seeking out pleasurable activities.
He advises pain patients to "find things to give you pleasure in life, whether it be through the one you love or going and listening to great music or reading a good book." "Our research shows that activating this intrinsic reward system ultimately can reduce your pain."
Dr. Mackey said the research should also help doctors better assess the condition of their patients, particularly those who are finding relief "that doesn't involve a pill or procedure." In his own practice he now not only encourages pain patients to seek out distractions but to also focus on pleasurable activities.
"It's caused me to change the education I give and how I talk with my patients," he said. Dr. Mackey says he also now pays more attention to the role that a relationship may be having on a patient's health. "When patients are doing markedly better and I find out they are in a new passionate relationship, I may be less likely to think it's the new medication I put them on," he said. "I realize that maybe it has nothing to do with me.
Dean Ornish, author and researcher, is well known for his work during the past twenty years demonstrating that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even severe coronary heart disease without drugs or surgery. In his book, Love and Survival: Eight Pathways to Intimacy and Health, he writes, "There is more scientific evidence now than ever before demonstrating how simple changes in diet and lifestyle may cause significant improvements in health and well-being. As important as these are, I have found that perhaps the most powerful intervention -- and the most meaningful for me and for most of the people with whom I work, including staff and patients -- is the healing power of love and intimacy, and the emotional and spiritual transformation that often result from these."
Ornish helped conduct a study at Yale that involved 119 men and 40 women undergoing coronary angiography. Those who felt the most loved and supported had substantially less blockages in their heart arteries than the other subjects. In a related study, researchers looked at almost 10 thousand married men with no prior history of angina. These men had high levels of risk factors, such as elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and electrocardiogram abnormalities. Those who felt their wives did not show them love experienced almost twice as much angina as the first group, who felt their wives did show them love.
While feeling loved appears to benefit our heart's health, giving love seems to do the same for our aging process. The results of a study of more than 700 elderly adults showed that the effects of aging were influenced more by what the participants contributed to their social support network than what they received from it. In other words, the more love and support they gave, the more they benefited.
Social ties with friends, family, workers, and community that involve love and intimacy of any type also may help protect against infectious diseases. In a study of 276 healthy volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 55, all participants received nasal drops containing rhinovirus, which causes the common cold. Researchers assessed subjects on 12 types of relationships, including relationship with spouse, parents, parents-in-law, children and other close family members, neighbors, friends, co-workers schoolmates, and member of various groups. They scored a point for each type of relationship if they spoke to a person in that category at least once every two weeks. While almost all of the people exposed to the cold virus were infected, not everyone developed the signs and symptoms of a cold. The participants who reported only one to three types of relationships had more than four times the risk of developing a cold than those reporting six or more types of relationships.
"When you feel loved, nurtured, cared for, supported, and intimate, you are much more likely to be happier and healthier. You have a much lower risk of getting sick and, if you do, a much greater chance of surviving," Ornish concludes in his book.
Ornish believes that love and intimacy are at a root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads us to healing. He points out that if a new drug had the same impact that love seems to have on health, virtually every doctor in the country would be recommending it for their patients. Yet, with few exceptions, doctors do not learn much about the healing power of love, intimacy, and transformation during medical training.
Perhaps all of us can spread the good word this month about the healing power of love. If any of you have personal or professional stories to share, those would make a great contribution to our blog. And you just might receive 3 free teleseminars for your time and effort to write them up (by the way, we will edit!). Not only will you feel good about your contribution, you may inspire many others. Please send them to assistant@maggiephillipsphd.com.
Thanks so much for taking time to read this newsletter.
May you be mindful of the healing power of love in your life,especially this month,
Maggie
