The Love hormone. Are you getting enough oxytocin?

The month of February represents to me a double sword edge, cold winter stillness, brighter days and smack in the middle of the month of love. This month is dedicated to our hearts, an expression of our love to the one’s we cherish, family, friends, our children and partner. Sometimes not all of us feel they have someone to love!! And even if we do, would you say no to more love chemicals?
Psychology today say’s eating any types of foods stimulates the release of the hormone oxytocin, which affects the brain’s response to intimacy. It is also affected by other senses, including smell, touch and sight. There a several happy hormones that contributes to healthier living such as dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and oxytocin. How can we increase more oxytocin in our lives and beware of what depletes pleasurable hormones? Here are some interesting facts that can help understand the correlation between food, brain and happy hormone. The Do’s and don’ts!!
One primary factor is the amount of sugar we intake, excess sugar, alters the brain chemistry by destructing dopamine directly. For instance, eating a candy bar, would give you a candy high, like alcohol and recreational drugs, in fact sugar stimulates the exact same euphoric path ways that are targeted by alcohol and drugs, in other words it decreases levels of dopamine in the brain which leads to sugar addiction. If you have sugar addiction, supplementing with chromium and L tyrosine (amino acid building block), can be a good plan. Food such as almonds can be a great source, although foods might not be enough to nourish someone with major low dopamine levels.
Another element is carbohydrates, they increase serotonin levels, which partly explains why we crave sweet or starchy foods when we are feeling down. For the best mood boost with the least negative impact, choose healthy, high-fibre sources of carbs such as dense whole-grain bread, pasta or quinoa.
Also, another helping tool would be to decrease caffeine intake; even though coffee can give you an energy boost but long term it can deplete the body of nutrients, being counterproductive and rob you from energy. Furthermore, some people use coffee has a habitual laxative to help start the day, on second thought try herbal plants or additional fiber, to restore, tone and relax bowel movement.

Get a routine; be consistent and have a momentum, our body needs at least 7-8 hours of sleep with a combination period of exercise during the day. This provides our body to recharge, increase blood circulation, and hormones to travel our brain effecting our dopamine levels. Under sleeping or over sleeping or lack of activity can drain the brain of dopamine, sleep gives the brain time to recuperate, restore neurotransmitter.
Keep your adrenal glands in check, our life styles are very busy and, on the go, sometimes the stress can become overwhelming that we reach a point of feeling burnt out, that the body is not able to handle any levels of stress-physical-mental or emotional. When stress becomes this serious, it is referred to adrenal fatigue. Regular consumption of adaptogen plants help protect, rejuvenate and bring homeostasis back to our adrenal glands. Ashwagandha, Holy Basil and Maca are popular adaptogen plants highly recommended in the holistic medicine. Remember high level of stress can create low dopamine and oxytocin!

Eat foods that are full of nutrients in tryptophan, they are 1 of the 9 essential amino acid that cannot be synthesized in enough amounts by humans and must therefore, be incorporated in our diets. Tryptophan helps to form more dopamine and serotonin hormones called the Happy Hormone. The best dietary sources of tryptophan include; brown rice, cottage cheese, meat (Turkey is one of the highest in nutrients of tryptophan), peanuts and soy protein. Other foods that can increase happy hormones are watermelon, beets, apples and gourgon beans. Remember the importance of berries which are full of antioxidants and can help dopamine levels to stay afloat since they are easily oxidized from stress.

To some feeling pleasure and love can be challenging, in fact certain inherited genes seem to account for 50% percent of our happiness, but even if our natural tendency is to be more down than up, the importance is to find long term solution that will help increase happy hormones. Rather than immediate gratification such as sugar, we can make choices that will help our experience to be a brighter, happier life.
So, the next time you need a boost of oxytocin, be mindful of your eating habits, cook more often, enjoy your food and eat meals with someone you love.

Wishing good Health,