Love at First Sight... Oxytocin: The Two-Sided "Love Hormone"

The Pros and Cons of Oxytocin - “The Love Hormone”

Introduction

We’ve all heard and read about those romantic tales of falling love at first sight. One may feel like they’ve found their soulmate, and everything seemed perfect from then on. However, one may eventually feel too much love, to the point it gets tiring and painful, ultimately ending an emotional relationship.

Oxytocin is similar in many ways to this. It first floods us with sweet emotions and feelings, but too much of it can cause your tragic end. These are the pros and cons of the dangerous, misleadingly innocent hormone known as Oxytocin.

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What is Oxytocin?

Oxytocin, the love hormone that fills the mind with a cocktail of feel-good emotions. This substance is produced in the hypothalamus, a small section of the brain responsible for a variety of functions. Of course, under the condition that you do find love.

For females, Oxytocin kicks in during enjoyable social bondings, sexual reproduction, and also kicks in during childbirth; Oxytocin is what makes childbirth more tolerable.

It is also produced in men but doesn’t do as much for them, they just get to enjoy the feeling of it.

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The benefits of Oxytocin

This hormone may be invisible to the eye, but its effects prove to be much more colossal when experienced. After being released into our bloodstreams, as mentioned above, it aids the processes of sexual reproduction, childbirth and breastfeeding. Oxytocin has also reportedly made people feel warm, fuzzy and secure.

Oxytocin has long since been researched to be used as an anti-anxiety drug due to its calming effects and its ability to give people mental security. It has also been used in the past to help those with autism and schizophrenia to overcome social deficits.

Of course, with all its extraordinary benefits, one would have the thought to overdose on Oxytocin if such a concentrated drug for it was made available. However, too much of anything can wreck you, and Oxytocin is no exception. If dosed irresponsibly, Oxytocin can backfire and carry out some unwanted side effects, which may affect your health forever.

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Oxytocin’s unrecognised side effects

Oxytocin is a very beneficial hormone, thus why our bodies produce it. Unfortunately, it also comes with its share of unwanted side effects. Being overwhelmed with Oxytocin can disrupt your heartbeat patterns making it irregular (known as an Arrhythmia). Although it helps to treat autism as mentioned above, too much of this hormone can actually cause damage to your brain in ways such as but not limited to:

• Increased anxiety

• Increased fear levels

• Mental instability

• Increased levels of negative social memories

Expanding upon this last one, increased levels of negative social memories, Oxytocin is capable of intensifying negative memories regarding social interactions, all within six hours of making the memory. These intense negative social memories make it easier for the brain to succumb to the other effects on the list: increased anxiety, fear and mental instability.

In short, we want this hormone, we want this love feeling, we just can’t tolerate too much of it or it will become detrimental to our well-being in the future.

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Conclusion

Oxytocin is an extremely powerful and complex hormone, with effects ranging from increased anxiety to decreased anxiety, from warm and fuzzy feelings to intense memory horrors. These are the reasons that we must balance our levels of oxytocin, or any hormone for that matter. Too much of anything will always be detrimental to us and our well being.

It is so crucial that we understand and pay attention to these things because as the title suggests, we fall in love with them at first sight, and then slowly regret ever realising it in the first place.