Brain fitness aside, the brain chemical oxytocin can either help or hinder conncection.
I ran across an article by Kevin Horrigan (quote below) the other day, and he talked about how NBA teams who were more connected by touch during a game were shown to do better throughout the season.
“Oxytocin, writes Ms. Angier, is “the small, celebrated peptide hormone that, by the looks of it, helps lubricate our every prosocial exchange, the thousands of acts of kindness, kind-of kindness and not-as-nakedly-venal-as-I-could-have-been kindness that make human society possible. Scientists have long known that the hormone plays essential physiological roles during birth and lactation, and animal studies have shown that oxytocin can influence behavior too, prompting voles to cuddle up with their mates, for example, or to clean and comfort their pups. Now a raft of new research in humans suggests that oxytocin underlies the twin emotional pillars of civilized life, our capacity to feel empathy and trust.”
Horrigan cited a study at UC Berkeley that looked at this subject. In the study, touch would have included …
“fist bumps, high fives, chest bumps, leaping shoulder bumps, chest punches, head slaps, head grabs, low fives, high tens, full hugs, half hugs, and team huddles. On average, a player touched other teammates (M = 1.80, SD = 2.05) for a little less than two seconds during the game, or about one tenth of a second for every minute played.”
It seems that touch tells the brain to shoot a little bit of the chemical ocytocin into the blood stream. There have been previous articles that touted the benefits of oxytocin. It has been called the love drug, the relationships chemical, and has been connected to closeness between people for quite some time. I don’t know if it is just the skin to skin connection that does it, or it there has to be an intent as well.
However, there is another side to this. In some animals, increased oxytocin has been linked to more hostility, and a tendency to be territorial. Humans happen to be among those species. Mindhacks tells it like this -
In their paper, they note several exceptions to the media stereotype that oxytocin is a ‘hug hormone’, citing studies that it increases aggression and territorial defence in some species. Also contrary to the cliché, a recent study found it had no effect on empathy for other people’s pain.
So, don’t get the oxytocin spray bottle out quite yet. The jury is still out on it’s benefits and non-benefits. It could be that, like many other, this chemical is an example of too much of a good thing being, simply, too much.
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