A love drug - sounds like something from the movies doesn’t it? But the fact is a little known hormone called oxytocin may indeed be nature’s own love drug - a hormone that is so powerful that its effects can not only affect the emotional well being of both men and women but may influence many areas of their health as well.

So just what is Oxytocin? Well, as mentioned above, oxytocin is a hormone. It’s produced primarily by an area of the brain known as the hypothalamus, which is located deep inside the brain close to the brain stem. The oxytocin that the hypothalamus produces is released either directly into the blood stream via the pituitary gland (which protrudes from the bottom of the hypothalamus at the base of the brain) or to other parts of the brain and spinal cord.

For many of us, particularly women, the only time that we might have heard about oxytocin is in relation to menstruation and childbirth. It’s oxytocin that causes the uterine lining to be expelled each month. And during childbirth, it’s oxytocin that helps trigger uterine contractions, and is often administered to women to help speed up slow labours. In the third stage of labour, oxytocin plays an important part in effecting the delivery of the placenta and again it is common practice these days for a mother to receive synthetic oxytocin to help this final stage of labour progress speedily and effectively.

But it’s after birth that we have our first real insight into oxytocin as “a love drug”. During the post natal period, a woman’s oxytocin levels remain high. On the physical side of things this is important because oxytocin causes the placenta to clamp down, bleeding to stop and allows milk to flow via the let down reflex. But oxytocin doesn’t just cause physical responses. Oxytocin exerts a huge emotional effect on a new mum because its oxytocin that is essentially responsible for the bonding that takes place between a mother and her new born. And for anyone who has experienced or witnessed this bond, you know only too well how powerful and utterly amazing this bond is. No wonder oxytocin has been nick named the bonding hormone.

And oxytocin’s ability to generate this bond is now the subject of Australian research. The researchers are hoping that their research will result in the use of oxytocin to help new mums bond with their babies especially those mums who maybe having difficulty bonding - often an issue for those suffering from post natal depression.

At this point you may be thinking what does any of this have to do with me? Well for a start we now know that oxytocin isn’t just restricted to women. It also affects men in a similar way when it comes to bonding with their children. And it isn’t just restricted to emotional bonds with off spring - it’s the reason why we form all sorts of bonds with other people and even our pets.

And oxytocin plays a huge role in our sex lives. Not only is oxytocin responsible for causing both males and females to orgasm (which it does by stimulating nerves in the genitals to fire spontaneously), it is responsible for sexually arousing us in the first place. Oxytocin causes us to have feelings of intimacy, sexual desire and closeness and there can be little doubt that oxytocin loves sexual foreplay. Such things as skin to skin contact cause oxytocin levels to rise and the more they rise the more aroused we become, with our erogenous zones becoming sensitized by the effects of oxytocin. The more aroused we become, the more we engage in behaviour that causes even more oxytocin to be released until we eventually reach orgasm. By this time oxytocin levels in men have quintupled but in women, who require more oxytocin if they are to orgasm, levels have reached stratospheric proportions. If a woman’s brain becomes flooded with oxytocin, she may achieve multiple orgasms. No wonder oxytocin is nature’s love drug.

Indeed, oxytocin is so in tune with our need for closeness and human contact that even cuddling someone can result in oxytocin release which is why some people call it the cuddle hormone.

And the good news doesn’t end there. Researchers now think that oxytocin may be able to counter the effects of stress and in particular the effects of the hormone cortisol. Whilst some cortisol is important for the maintenance of a number for important bodily functions such as insulin release for blood sugar regulation, too much cortisol can be very harmful. It can lead to such things as increased blood pressure and an increase in abdominal fat, the presence of which is implicated in a number of potentially life threatening health conditions including heart attack and stroke. Unfortunately, if we are stressed then our cortisol levels rise. What’s more being stress aggravates just about every disease and condition. Oxytocin’s ability to be able to counter stress is therefore vitally important for our health.

It’s believed that oxytocin may even be capable of turning potentially stressful experiences into experiences that are full of love and deep happiness. You only have to look at childbirth for an example of this!

Add to all of this the fact that oxytocin can help regulate sleep patterns, calm you down and promote a general sense of well being and you begin to see why people are getting excited about oxytocin.