People Spoon With Professional Cuddlers For The First Time

I thought this was interesting.

They didn't mention it in the video, but I thought that closing words were a nice illustration of how cuddling causes people's brain to release more oxytocin, sometimes known as "the cuddle hormone." Oxytocin causes people to bond and generally leads to people feeling safer and more comfortable.

Ever felt that when cuddling? That's oxytocin.



Spoiler:
I also liked how when the woman felt safer she was able to open up more. Perhaps, she was even able to open up to some truth more?

Barbara Fredrickson, a distinguished researcher of bonding and human being, has a great book on all of these issues, called Love 2.0. She mentions that when people open up, all sorts of wonderful things become possible. Reading her work is one of the reasons why I post that "feeding the wolves" cartoon so often. If we feed the "positive wolves," good things tend to happen. Perhaps this is why people's grandparents and teachers may have talked about the importance of a positive attitude. She also has a book called positivity, but I haven't read it.

Anyway, to paraphrase a song, "human beings aint nothing but mammals" (NSFW), and, in particular, we are mammals made for social connection.

 

Here is another one that shows a bit of the benefits of oxytocin, in my opinion:


For those who aren't lucky enough to have someone to cuddle with, let me say that there is far more research on the benefits of meditation than there is on the benefits of cuddling. Aside from the entertainment value of the videos (which is what I posted them for, really), perhaps meditation would be something to start working on more immediately.

 

I felt soooo bad for the bigger dog at the beginning. He was trying to be so good.

Then I understood.

If anyone is curious about the importance of cuddling and bonding on children, I have a video on that suggested by Frances Sommer Anderson, PhD, SEP. She was trained by Dr. Sarno and was a Sarno psychologist for more than 30 years. The book she coauthored, Pathways to Pain Relief, is the best source of information about the kind of individual therapy received by Dr. Sarno's toughest patients.

Oxytocin, the cuddle hormone, is also the hormone that is released when a baby is fed. For the record, oxytocin is also considered a neuropeptide, a term that might be familiar to people who have read Candace Pert, PhD's book, Molecules of Emotion, which Dr. Sarno recommended in two of his own books.

Here's the video: (warning: the effect it shows is so powerful that the video is sad to watch)

 

Interesting stuff, plum. We need to be careful in how we tinker with human biology.

I tracked down one of the passages that Dr. Sarno wrote about neuropeptides like oxytocin. He describes how some neuropeptides can be part of the mechanism that causes TMS. The following is from page 51 of The Divided Mind, by John Sarno, MD:

THE WORK OF CANDACE PERT AND COMPANY

A discussion of the theoretical and practical clinical manifestations of the mindbody phenomenon would be incomplete without noting the huge contribution of Candace Pert. It was her suggestion to join the words mind and body. In my view, she and her colleagues have done the most exciting work in this field. It is particularly important because she is a laboratory scientist, a practitioner of “hard science.”

To my knowledge her research group was the first to speak of the biochemistry of emotions.

Chemicals called neuropeptides have a connection with specific receptors, like a key and a lock. For example, morphine reduces pain because it connects with and activates receptors in the body that reduce pain. Receptors exist for feelings of rage, joy, hunger, pain, pleasure, grief, and for all emotions, as well as for body reactions like appetite, sexual behavior and water balance.

The limbic system in the brain (see Figures 1 and 2) is an important seat of emotions. Two structures in the limbic system, the amygdala and the hypothalamus, are particularly rich in neuropeptide receptors.

According to Dr. Pert, “The striking pattern of neuropeptide distribution in mood-regulating areas of brain, as well as their role in mediating communication throughout the whole organism, makes neuropeptides the obvious candidates for the biochemical mediation of emotion.”

Neuropeptides have been found in many locations, like the spleen and the spinal cord. Monocytes, cells of the body’s immune system, carry neuropeptide receptors and travel throughout the body.

The study of neuropeptides and their receptors suggests a network in which information of all kinds, including emotional information, is circulated throughout the body, allowing organs and systems to affect each other. The distinction between brain and body is disappearing, since functions that were thought to originate exclusively in the brain are now found elsewhere, and vice versa. Insulin, thought to be produced only in the pancreas, is now known to be made and stored in the brain, and there is a heavy concentration of insulin receptors in the limbic system.

This is magnificent research and there is certain to be more of it. However, we still have the “black box,” that mysterious domain that prompts so many questions. How does the brain do what it does? What is the process that allows us to communicate with each other? How do we think? How are emotions elaborated? How does the brain decide to produce a psychosomatic reaction and choose its location?
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