Ways to Be Happy and Healthy Using the Real Power of Love

What is the real power of love? By experiencing loving and caring relationships, you can increase your happiness and life satisfaction.

Bringing more love into your life can be a simple way to be happy, but it can be more than just about feeling good or having positive emotions for the sake of pleasure. It can also be a great way to be healthy.

Having loving and caring relationships can offer a huge boost to your health and wellness. It can decrease your stress and increase your emotional and social health. To learn how you can experience the powerful health benefits of love and caring relationships, read on…

Many years ago, I had two patients who had dysfunctional backgrounds due to their domineering mothers. Both patients had medical issues that required attention, but they were very different in their levels of happiness. One was emotionally stable and happy, the other had serious emotional health issues that were resistant to treatments, including, severe depression as well as suicidal thoughts. I was puzzled by the difference between these two people because I felt both were remarkable human beings.

One day, I asked the happy patient why she ended up being emotionally stable despite her dysfunctional background. Her answer was surprising. She said that her domineering mother and dysfunctional background did not affect her happiness and her emotional stability because she knew her mother loved her. If she didn’t know that then she would have ended up being a “basket case.”

I wanted to confirm that “love was the answer” by asking the chronically-depressed patient about her perception of her mother’s love. Her answer was not surprising. She felt her mother did not love her. To make matters worse, her mother often demonstrated this lack of love even when she was very ill.

Of course, this was not a scientific study involving a large number of randomly chosen subjects. But, you get the idea of how powerful love can be.

Loving and caring acts can have dramatic effects on the health of babies and children. Healthy babies and children usually enjoy a lot of love and human touch, such as, cuddling and holding from parents and other family members.

Studies have shown that infants failed to thrive when they did not get enough human contact. Children in orphanages who suffered from touch deprivation achieved only half of the height normal for their age.

Studies have also shown that caring human touch and skin-to-skin contact from parents, family members and volunteers help premature babies sleep better, breathe better and regulate their body temperature and heart rate.

When you feel loved, it can be very rewarding in many ways. Caring, loving and supportive relationships can decrease your stress. In contrast, dealing with unhealthy relationships can create a lot of stress in your life.

Most people know how it feels to get divorced or to breakup with someone. It can be such a miserable feeling. Some people get depressed or even suicidal. Losing someone or getting rejected by someone you love can be a very stressful event in your life.

Day-to-day stress due to dysfunctional or toxic relationships can be hazardous to your health.

When you have loving, caring and deeply satisfying relationships, it can boost your happiness, health and wellness. The health-boosting effects of loving relationships are not limited to romantic relationships. These benefits can also be experienced from close relationships with family members, friends, co-workers and other people in the community.

Happiness and Health-Boosting Effects of Romantic Relationships

Studies have shown that people in love release certain chemicals in the brain, including pheromones, serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. These chemicals stimulate the brain’s pleasure center. This can explain why people in love experience greater happiness. By experiencing love-induced happiness, you can improve your health.

According to positive psychology and happiness research studies, happiness and other positive emotions can have a powerful influence on your health. They can make your immune system function better and provide a protective effect against some diseases. They appear to decrease the risk or limit the severity of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases as well as colds and upper-respiratory infections.

By experiencing the happiness-boosting effects of love, you can improve your health. However, there are also health benefits directly associated with love.

Stress-Reducing and Happiness-Boosting Effects of the “Cuddle Hormone”

Caring and loving acts increase secretion of oxytocin. Long-term relationships are associated with increased levels of oxytocin and vasopressin.

The primary role of vasopressin is to regulate water retention in our body. It has also been shown to influence pair bond formation in primates and other animals.

Oxytocin has powerful effects on human relationships. Its secretion is stimulated by activities associated with love, caring and sex, such as, hugging, kissing, talking, touching as well as sexual stimulation, arousal and orgasm. By increasing trust, empathy and generosity while reducing fear, oxytocin leads to reduction in anxiety as well as greater feelings of contentment and security around loved ones. In turn, these oxytocin-mediated effects lead to greater attachment and bonding as well as happiness and satisfaction in relationships.

By reducing anxiety and boosting happiness, oxytocin-mediated effects can lead to significant reduction in stress experienced by people in loving and caring relationships. But, oxytocin may also have direct stress-reducing effects.

Studies have shown that oxytocin can inhibit release of cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). ACTH is often produced in response to stress. It causes increased production and release of cortisol, which is a stress hormone.

Chronic stress from day-to-day living can increase your risk for numerous health problems, including stroke, heart attack, high blood pressure, accelerated aging, heart disease, obesity, digestive problems, memory impairment and decreased immunity as well as worsening of cancer and other diseases.

Oxytocin stimulated by activities associated with love, caring and sex can help prevent the damaging effects of stress to your body. The inhibiting effects of oxytocin on the release of cortisol and ACTH can magnify its stress-reducing effects.

Happiness and Health-Boosting Effects of Loving and Caring Relationships

The most fundamental finding from studies on the psychology of happiness is that being with other people makes people happy. The “need to belong” is important in life satisfaction.

It’s not absolutely necessary to be in a romantic relationship in order to be happy in life. There are millions of single people who are content, happy and satisfied with their life.

When you have loving, caring and deeply satisfying relationships with family and friends, you can also boost your happiness, health and wellness.

Oxytocin secretion is stimulated by non-sexual activities associated with love and caring, such as, hugging and talking. Words of encouragement, love and support can also have powerful happiness-boosting and stress-reducing effects. These effects are likely to be mediated by oxytocin as well as serotonin and dopamine; release of these feel-good neurotransmitters are associated with feelings of love.

Being in love or experiencing love in caring relationships leads to increased production of brain chemicals and hormones that lead to increased pleasure and bonding with loved ones. Love-induced happiness and oxytocin-mediated stress-reduction can provide a protective effect against some diseases.

By developing loving, caring and deeply satisfying relationships, you can can boost your health and wellness as well as your happiness and life satisfaction. You can harness the real power of love.

==>> Click HERE for various ways to connect with singles near you.

Categories: Family and Issues, Health and Fitness, Love and Relationships, Self-Help and Self-Improvement  |  1 Comment »

1 comment