How to Stay Healthy With These Top Tips

Your hormones get a bad reputation, from making you feel bloated to being blamed for making you crave carbs. But they aren’t all bad – there are some that offer significant health benefits and can even help you to lose weight. Here are some ways you can work in conjunction with your hormones to maintain a healthy weight and harness their positive powers.

Ease stress with endorphins

Often referred to as the body’s ‘feel-good’ hormones, these can help you to ease the pain of stress and improve your wellbeing. There are ways that you can encourage the release of endorphins, such as eating spicy foods which activate the nerve endings on your tongue, prompting the release of these hormones. Similarly, you can stimulate the nerves near your nose that signal to your brain to produce endorphins by chewing peppermint gum.

Stay alert with dopamine

Dopamine controls your concentration and long-term memory, so a surge of this hormone can help you to feel more motivated and focused. Studies show that dopamine levels spike when you listen to music, so playing your favourite songs when you’re paying bills or doing the housework could help you to power through that little bit quicker. Alternatively, you could get a protein-rich snack such as a handful of nuts or a couple of hard boiled eggs.

Maintain a healthy weight with leptin and grehlin

Leptin is released by the fat cells in the body and lets you know when you’ve eaten enough. Grehlin, produced in the stomach, sends signals to the brain when you’re hungry. One study suggests that eating a carb-filled and protein-rich breakfast, alongside a cookie or a piece of chocolate, helps with this release. Sleeping more can also help to balance these hormones properly, so make sure you make time for sleep. If stress and worry are keeping you up at night, make a list of things that are worrying you to help you sleep.

Balance your mood with progesterone and oxytocin

Oxytocin is the bonding hormone, because it encourages you to feel loved and give you a sense of trust in others. Progesterone is produced by the ovaries and helps to create calm and balance. Studies have shown that singing is a great way of improving your oxytocin levels, so start the day by singing in the shower or humming when you’re feeling irritable. You should also hug more – researchers have found that women who hug more have higher levels of oxytocin and lower blood pressure. You should also feel closer to a friend to increase your progesterone levels, so walk arm in arm with a loved one or pet an animal to replicate the feeling. Anything that improves your mood and helps you to feel closer to someone or something could help with the increase of these hormones.

Boost your body confidence with oestrogen and testosterone

Testosterone can help you to feel more assertive and improve your self-confidence, whilst oestrogen can boost a better skin tone by boosting water to the cells to give you a youthful glow. Studies show that testosterone levels increase when you’ve been exercising so try to opt for burst training, which works by building up to a faster pace for thirty seconds after moderate exercise. Zinc can also help, for both testosterone and oestrogen production. You can use supplements of at least 25mg a day, or try eating more lean beef, yoghurt, pumpkin seeds or dark chocolate. If you’re opting for the supplement route, you should check with your GP beforehand to ensure that it is safe.

Categories: feel, feel closer, healthy weight, hormones, levels, lifestyle, oxytocin, protein rich, Testosterone, Weight Loss

Discussing Problems with Friends Raises Mood Boost Hormone

Talking about your problems with a friend doesn’t only help you to fix the problem; it does wonders for your emotional health. This is according to a new Canadian study, from researchers at Concordia University, which found that sharing your problems in times of stress really can help improve mood because if produces the “feel-good” hormone oxytocin.

According to researcher Mark Ellenbogen, when you reach out to others for support after a stressful event, oxytocin may promote the “tend to befriend” response. ‘That means that instead of the traditional “fight or flight” response to social conflict where people get revved up to respond to a challenge or run away from it, oxytocin may promote the “tend and befriend” response where people reach out to others for support after a stressful event,’ he said. ‘That can, in turn, strengthen social bonds and may be a healthier way to cope.’

For the study, the researchers gave 100 students a dose of either oxytocin or a placebo via nasal spray. Then, in a conversation that was staged to simulate real life, the researchers acted as students and disagreed with, interrupted and ignored the unsuspecting participants, so that they would feel social rejection. After this, the participants filled out questionnaires on their mood and personality. The results of the study revealed that those whose emotional wellbeing was particularly affected by the rejection reported greater trust in other people if they were given oxytocin before the conversation, but not if they were given the placebo. Yet, oxytocin had no noticeable effect on trust in those whose wellness wasn’t impacted by the rejection.

In a news release, co-researcher Christopher Cardoso commented, ‘If someone is feeling very distressed, oxytocin could promote social support seeking, and that may be especially helpful to those individuals.’ He added, ‘Previous studies have shown that natural oxytocin is higher in distressed people, but before this study nobody could say with certainty why that was the case. In distressed people, oxytocin may improve one’s motivation to reach out to others for support. That idea is cause for a certain degree of excitement, both in the research community and for those who suffer from mood disorders.’

Categories: oxytocin, Research, social rejection

Can Oxytocin Help Keep Men Faithful?

An intriguing new study has been released in Germany that has shown that the “love hormone” oxytocin may help maintain romantic relationships as it promotes men keeping their distance from attractive women. In the rather bizarre results from the study, men in relationships who were given an oxytocin nasal spray stayed about four to six inches farther away from an attractive woman they didn’t know, compared with men in monogamous relationships who took a placebo.

It was also notable that the oxytocin spray had no effect on the distance that single men chose to keep between themselves and the attractive woman. This shows that oxytocin clearly has a measurable effect on men in relationships. It suggests that the hormone promotes fidelity in humans. This is in keeping with previous research that was conducted using animals in a lab, which suggested the hormone played a role in pair-bonding.

In humans, oxytocin has been found to promote the bond between parents and children, increase levels of trust, and even to help reduce conflict between couples. Another study, earlier in the year, found that couples with high levels of oxytocin in the early stages of their relationship were more likely to stay together six months later than couples with lower levels of the hormone.

However, this is the first study to suggest that oxytocin could contribute to the maintenance of a relationship. The study involved 57 heterosexual men, around half of whom were in relationships. After receiving either a dose of oxytocin or taking a placebo, the participants were introduced to a female experimenter who described as “attractive”.

They were then asked to state the ideal distance that the woman should stand away from them highlighting when standing too close felt uncomfortable.

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Can Oxytocin Help Keep Men Faithful?

Categories: faithful, men, oxytocin