Love & Fear. Which is your choice?

Thứ Hai, 5 tháng 4, 2010

Love & Fear

Pro skateboarder Mike Vallely at Orlando Skate Park by Rick Andrews

Do you know what happens inside our bodies in reaction to love and fear? I didn’t know, but I was intrigued when I researched it and now I’m going to share it with here.
It all started off by me reading an article today about Love and Fear, which I thought was so interesting. I had no idea about the actual chemical process that is triggered by Love and Fear.
A threatening stimuli cause stress hormones of adrenalin and Cortisol. By contrast, love, or soothing stimuli, causes the increase of the hormone Oxytocin.


Sudden fright or fear is associated with the production of Adrenaline, which in turn increases the heart rate, causing muscle reaction and alertness. You become sweaty, your breathing becomes more rapid and you often feel a shiver go through your body.
Long-term stress or fear produces Cortisol. Cortisol has a different effect on the body than adrenaline. Cortisol is more detrimental to the body. Cortisol begins to break down non-essential organs and tissues to keep blood sugars available to feed vital organs. Chronic production of Cortisol at high levels (long periods of stress) begins to digest bones, muscles and joints to get these essential nutrients.
What happens in this case is blood fats and sugar become elevated. This is a cause of many disorders; one of them is reaching for high-calorie foods.
An example of prolonged stress that can cause health problems is the threat of loosing your job, commuting in heavy traffic each day to work, an unreasonable boss and dreading going to work. Marriage problems can also create stress that produces Cortisol. These problem or life issues may not be always be outwardly physically detrimental to the body, but the production of Cortisol, because of this stress, is extremely hard indirectly on the body.
Fortunately for us our amazing body system has a hormone to counteract the harmful hormones. The anti-stress hormone is called Oxytocin. Oxytocin can promote better health.
We need to know how to kick Oxytocin hormones into gear so that our stressful conditions do not destroy our bodies.
There is a lot of ways that can help our body produces Oxytocin:

• Meditation
• Yoga
• Prayer
• Pets
• Support groups
• Stillness, love and appreciation
• Laughter and joy
• Intimate relationships
• Cuddling
• Stroking
• Companionship and caring

The more Oxcytocin the body makes the stronger our immune system is and our body and mind become stronger also. The more Oxytocin the body produces the more nerve cell’s receptors grow. I guess it’s like a healthy plant; the more you feed it the more it grows and spreads.
Oxytocin has many positive affects on the body:

• Allow you to handle fear in a more controlled manner
• Helps to heal
• Helps reduce addictions such as sugar, food and chemical addictions
• Helps you live longer and healthier
• Helps make you more receptive sexually
• Helps with confidence
• Keeps you calm and relaxed

So this is a good example of why you should try to keep you life as stress-free as you can. Stress and fear have obviously got a lot of harmful effects on the body and mind; if not controlled they will have long term and terminal results.
On the other hand the effects of love and joy are so beneficial for the body.
I had very little knowledge of the chemical effects of these hormones and find it quite fascinating, as I do with all our body functions. Our body is quite the perfectly designed machine.
Needs to be serviced regularly to keep it in top form.
Never take it for granted.

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