Amazing Ways Your Body Uses Oxytocin To Fight Stress and Pain

Foreign. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on oxytocin, your love or survival hormone. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this presentation, you're going to learn what oxytocin is. The physical, interpersonal, emotional and cognitive benefits of oxytocin. We'll review a few important clinical implications. As far as helping people increase oxytocin. It's not just a Anybody can do it anywhere, anytime, and it's beneficial. So, you know, just a little prelude to that. And then we'll identify at least 10 ways to increase oxytocin. Generally, if people want to reduce stress, improve their sleep, improve their A1C, their blood sugar rating, reduce their blood pressure, improve their immunity, enhance relationships and interpersonal processing, improve their desire to interact with others, reduce anxiety and depression, enhance motivation, improve attention, cognitive flexibility and task switching, if they want to do these things, then they want to increase oxytocin. It is not a one and done. You can't just increase oxytocin and think everything's magically going to be well, just like you can't increase serotonin and expect everything's going to magically be well. But if increasing oxytocin, like when we increase other neurotransmitters and hormones, it will increase its buddies with it. And when we increase it, the positive effects of oxytocin have bidirectional positive impacts on most pieces of our life. If you're looking for those interventions, you can jump all the way down to slide 26. Oxytocin is a peptide hormone made in the hypothalamus that's part of the brain that functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain instead of the love hormone or the bonding hormone. I like to think of oxytocin as our survival hormone because it promotes bonding for group security as well as aggression under conditions of a perceived threat. When a mama bear recognizes that there may be a threat, that oxytocin that she's got going with little baby bear puts her in mama bear mode. I saw a meme yesterday which was so funny and so me. It was a picture of a cow with a little calf and it on the top. It said, city folks are saying, oh, what a cute little c calf. I want to go pet it. And the rancher saying, there's a reason that calf hasn't been tagged yet. And it's true. Mother cows are not going to be real kind or open to people coming and messing with their calves, especially if it's not somebody they trust. And the same thing is true for humans. Oxytocin modulates the autonomic nervous system. We've talked about the ANS and a lot of other classes, but if you're new, the autonomic nervous system is the balance of your stress response or your sympathetic nervous system and the relaxation response or your parasympathetic nervous system. So oxytocin helps modulate the stress response and the relaxation response. Oxytocin helps reduce sympathetic arousal, helps reduce stress, and enhances PE parasympathetic tone, which lowers cortisol levels. So when we start to reduce our stress, then our stress hormone cortisol goes down, which contributes to a feeling of physiological calm and safety. Again, this is only when oxytocin is released under conditions in which the person feels safe and or empowered. They can be going through something even in, in session. If you're working with somebody and they are starting to get distressed, having a therapy animal that they can pet can help them release oxytocin. Now why you're saying, well, they were feeling threatened, they were having a memory, they were experiencing something that was causing them to feel threatened. But in that environment, in the therapeutic environment where you're there, where the therapy animals there, they actually recognize they're safe and they can engage that and override the stress response and say, you know what, I'm safe here and I'm g, I'm going to downregulate. And and so that's, it's a big difference, but it's also a nuanced difference in what, whether the person is going to benefit from increasing oxytocin. And you can really think about it from the perspective of, and I like using animal therapy dogs, particularly if somebody is in, whatever the situation is that's making them feel threatened. If you give them a dog to pet, is it going to help them calm down? If they are in the middle of a bank robbery and you give them a dog to pet, that ain't going to do no good, anything. It may increase their aggression because now they want to protect the dog too. If they are experiencing distress at home, they find out that a loved one is ill. An animal, you know they're experiencing distress, but an animal can, when they pet, that animal can raise their oxytocin help and help them feel kind of more grounded, if you will. Oxytocin helps with circadian rhythm alignment and y' all know how important circadian rhythms are to your overall health, well being and mental health. When your Circadian rhythms get out of whack, then you're not going to sleep well. Your gonadal hormones, your thyroid hormones and your neurotransmitters are going to be all out of balance. So your circadian rhythms are essential. Because oxytocin stabilizes cortisol levels and increases the relaxation response, increases parasympathetic tone, and regulates hormone balance and blood sugar in, in your body, it can help stabilize those circadian rhythms. When we're stressed, when our cortisol levels are high, our body doesn't secrete melatonin and therefore we don't get to sleep as well. We don't get quality sleep. So by reducing cortisol, by increasing the activity of that relaxation response, by helping the person feel grounded, feel calmer, if you will, it can reduce a lot of stress on the body and stress in the mind and help again set those circadian rhythms so the person can relax. When it's time to relax. Oxytocin promotes melatonin release and circadian rhythm synchronization. That's another interesting thing. Remember, I've said repeatedly that our circadian rhythms are set by light levels, by temperature, as well as by our activities, especially social activities. If we're interacting with other people in a stressful way, we're not going to get to sleep as much. If we're interacting with people in general, we're probably not going to drift off to sleep because, you know, it's kind of rude. But we can in relationships where we feel comfortable, feel calmer and feel happy and then be able to go, go to sleep after that. Oxytocin improves sleep quality and time spent in deep sleep, that that's where all the junk is cleared out from the day, which is so important. So you wake up feeling refreshed. And it does this through enhanced circadian signaling and parasympathetic tone. So there circadian rhythms, because it's a rhythm and it sends out signals to your body about when to secrete what it's enhancing, that circadian clock or the C circadian signaling supports physical healing, immune functioning and energy regulation. All of these things are positive. We want all this to happen. So increasing somebody's ability to promote oxytocin in their body when it's time to relax, when it's time to get ready for bed, can be a huge help. Oxytocin is a vasodilator that lowers blood pressure and improves heart rate variability and reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease over time. When somebody is increasing oxytocin under conditions in which they feel safe, it helps them relax more. When they are increasing oxytocin intentionally as a distress tolerance activity, they're saying, okay, I'm feeling stressed and I need to downregulate. That helps reduce the amount of time and the intensity of that, that the body stays in that stress response, which is wonderful. When we stay in that stress response too long, the sympathetic nervous system becomes dominant and the parasympathetic nervous system becomes too weak. When our ans. When our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are balanced, then we see improved heart rate variability. We see the heart able to jump into action when it's time and to chill the heck out when it's not time to do whatever. And this can help reduce a lot of cardiovascular issues. It also reduces blood sugar spikes. Oxytocin inhibits pro inflammatory cytokines and enhances immune resilience. Remember, pro inflammatory cytokines are those things in our body that increase inflammation we see in people who are chronically stressed. When that sympathetic nervous system is overactive, they're chronically stressed. Cortisol, the stress hormone, loses its ability as a anti inflammatory chemical. And therefore we start to see unchecked inflammation in the body. When we have unchecked inflammation in the body, for some reason, the blood brain barrier becomes more permeable and then we start to see more neurological inflammation as well. Oxytocin is particularly protective against neuroinflammation, which is great. Just like estrogen is protective against neuroinflammation, so is oxytocin. As people age and their gonadal hormones drop, one of the things that they can do to maintain some level of neuroprotection is to try to make sure that they're increasing their levels of oxytocin. Neuroinflammation is implicated in depression, pain syndromes and cognitive decline. None of those things we want. So we definitely want to figure out how can we reduce that neuroinflammation. Lower inflammation reduces chronic activation of the stress response in the sympathetic nervous system. This decreases the production of cortisol and makes the receptors more sensitive again to cortisol. It also decreases the production of adrenaline, Nora and noradrenaline, which helps restore homeostasis. Another word for adrenaline is epinephrine, whatever you want to call it, and norepinephrine. But when we reduce our stress response, we're reducing those excitatory neurochemicals. When we reduce those, then we reduce the toxicity in the brain. When we're stressed Our excitatory neurochemicals, if, if you want to think about them as hot neurochemicals, like hot water, and then our relaxation neurochemicals are kind of like cold water. When you've got too much of the hot stuff in your brain for too long, then you start losing neurons. And it is important to have that balance. So by reducing inflammation, we reduce the stress response and by reducing the stress response, we reduce inflammation. So it's all bidirectional. Oxytocin improves the gut barrier lower inflammation enhances tight junction integrity in the intestinal tract, reducing intestinal permeability. We've talked before about how serotonin and the mucus lining of the gut is important in preventing leaky gut, but also the how tightly those cells are packed together. And oxytocin by helping to reduce inflammation, helps to enhance the integrity, the tightness of the cells in the gut that keeps all the toxins and stuff from your gut from leaking out. And you know, that's obviously a good thing. Oxytocin enhan enhances parasympathetic activity which stimulates gut motility and intestinal secretions that support that. The microbial diversity in the gut, it, it supports a healthy gut and prevents stagnant overgrowth. And a lot of people, when they think about gut overgrowth, the first thing they think about is candida. And that is certainly one of the things what's really interesting is our relaxation response. Our parasympathetic nervous system we, we often call it is rest and digest or rest, digest and repair. And so you can see when our parasympathetic nervous system is activated, that's when we actually have gut motility going on because our body is focusing its energy on processing all that stuff and doing whatever else it does in the gut. Normalized gut function promotes a healthier and more diverse gut microbiome, which reciprocally influences oxytocin release. When our gut microbiome is healthier, then the vagus nerve sends the message to the brain that hey, things are going good here and we don't need to be as stressed. So the stress response is not triggered as much. It also influences neurot transmitter neurotransmitters, neurotransmitter creation and by default, mood regulation. A lot of our neurotransmitters are created in our gut and communicated and sent wherever they need to be, partly through the vagus nerve. So it's interesting that oxytocin, by reducing stress, reducing inflammation, can help heal our gut and help help US balance our gonadal, thyroid, and neurotransmitter hormones. Better gut function enhances the uptake of essential n, essential nutrients, including iron, B12, and tryptophan, stabilizing energy levels and supporting neurotransmitter synthesis in other classes. I've shown y' all a D diagram before that shows how tryptophan is broken down. But in order to break tryptophan down into 5ht, we also need to have zinc and calcium and iron and a bunch of other chemical vitamins and minerals. An nutritionist friend of mine basically made the analogy that vitamins and minerals are like the spark plugs that help those actions take place. So without the vitamins and minerals, you can eat tryptophan until the cows come home, but it ain't gonna do anything because your body can't start that chemical reaction by having a healthy gut and allowing the body to be able to absorb all of those nutrients. Then it has the spark plugs it needs to trigger the chemical reactions that help make the hormones and neurotransmitters that we need. Frequent oxytocin release is associated with social safety and enhances natural killer cell killer cell activity and antibody production. Most of us know that when we are stressed, our immune system goes down, inflammation goes up, immune system goes down. It's just a bad thing when we release oxytocin, and that helps us activate that parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us downregulate. I try to avoid using the word calm down, but it helps us down regulate and reduce that systemic overactivity that allows the immune system to function more effectively through immune improved immune regulation and reduced inflammation. Oxytocin indirectly reduces the risk for diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and autoimmune issues. Cardiovascular disease, inflammation, autoimmune disorders, inflammation, diabetes, high blood sugar, and insulin resistance as a result of that high blood sugar. Now, how does diabetes fit in there? Remember, every time we get stressed and our stress response is triggered, that HPA axis is triggered. The brain tells the body to release sugar into the blood to prepare us for fight or flee. Even if there's not actually a threat out there. When that system gets triggered, blood sugar's released. And when that happens too often because a person is chronically stressed, then the insulin receptors start becoming more resistant. Oxytocin binds to receptors in the spinal cord and brain regions. Who knew? Apparently, the researchers did. Oxytocin binds to receptors in the spine and brain regions involved in nociception, which is pain perception. This Raises pain thresholds and reduces the perception of pain. You just, you may feel the same amount of pain, your, your nerves are experiencing the same pressure as doctors sometimes call it, but you're not. It doesn't feel as painful. And that's so interesting. Oxytocin also increases endogenous opioid activity. So it goes into our brain and says, hey, we need to release some, some of that natural opioid that we have for painkilling. Improved baseline immune function and reduced pain enhance people's ability to engage in physical activity, maintain routines which helps with those circadian rhythms and recover from illness or injury. All of those things reduce stress. Reduced stress leads to reduced inflammation. Reduced inflammation leads to a healthier gut and a healthier person overall. In terms of metabolic regulation and feeding. Oxytocin has its little grimy mitts in there too. Oxytocin improves A1C. That is the, a measure of how well your body is handling blood sugar and lipid regulation. And especially during times of social bonding or maternal care, when people feel feel relaxed, when you're experiencing bonding moments, when you're feeling cared for, when you're feeling safe, then guess what, your blood sugar is not going to be going all over the place like this. So your A1C levels are going to improve. Your insulin sensitivity is going to improve. Oxytocin has appetite suppressant effects and influences energy and homeostasis via the hypothalamus. The think this is interesting. A lot of people, I want you to think about people you've worked with who are emotional eaters or even binge eaters, but especially those who identify specifically as stress eaters or emotional eaters. Why is that? Well, they're trying to self medicate. They may be trying to distract themselves, but the foods that they gravitate to are generally high sugar, high processed, you know, really yummy foods that aren't so good for the body, but it causes the release of serotonin and dopamine and some endogenous opioids and things. Oxytocin has an appetite suppressant effect. And when people exp, when they, people experience situations in, in which they feel safe, in which they feel loved, their oxytocin is higher and they're not going to feel as stressed, therefore they won't be as hungry. That's a long way of saying if you've got somebody who's an emotional eater, helping them increase oxytocin may help them divert their urges to binge eat on high fat, high sugar foods to something else. That will also help them downregulate. Oxytocin inhibits the intake of palatable high calorie foods by interacting with dopamine and reward pathways. So again, if you have a stress eater, they're trying to increase that dopamine and serotonin. If you have somebody that is experiencing a surgeon oxytocin, you're going to have an increase in dopamine and serotonin. Oxytocin does what the highly palatable foods, as they call them also does. So it can take, it can replace that activity. Oxytocin increases resting energy expenditure, which I thought was really interesting. So your base metabolic rate, wow, I can't talk today. Your base metabolic rate can increase when oxytocin goes up. The thought behind that is that when we are under chronic stress, our body is trying to conserve energy. It doesn't want to burn any more energy than absolutely possible. So it has those reserves for when it's time to fight. And when people aren't feeling stressed all the time, the body goes, oh hey, we can burn some of that energy, no big deal, we'll get more in a little while. Weight stabilization reduces the risk of obesity related inflammation and metabolic syndrome, which is another side benefit of increasing oxytocin. Helping people relax so their base metabolic rate goes up so they don't have as much in the way of cravings for dopamine for foods that promote dopamine and serotonin. In terms of your thyroid and your godal hormones, reduced cortisol allows for improved regulation of thyroid, gonadal and growth hormones, all of which are suppressed under chronic stress conditions. So again, we want to reduce cortisol. To do that, we've got to reduce stress. To do that, we've got to figure out what's causing the stress and, and how to intervene. Chronic oxytocin release and I thought that was an interesting word that they used in the research, so I used it here. Chronic oxytocin release, which is a good thing. It sounds bad, but it's really a good thing. Really. It reduces cortisol levels that inhibit thyroid stimulating hormone and conversion of T4 to active T3. When our thyroid releases T4 in order for it to be useful to us, it has to be converted to T3. And when we're under stress that doesn't happen as readily. Additionally, and I didn't mention it here, but I will anyway, there's another enzyme that breaks down T3 and sort of cleans up the situation after the T3 is not used Needed anymore, if you will. But under stress, that enzyme breaks down T3 more quickly than it's actually supposed to. So either way, people may start feeling very hypothyroid and actually being objectively hypothyroid under conditions of chronic stress, hypothyroid is associated in many situations with chronic physical, emotional, cognitive stress. Estrogen in both genders increases oxytocin receptor density and enhances oxytocin sensitivity. When estrogen levels are high, people tend to be more sensitive to others around them, which can be overwhelming for people who are already highly sensitive. Testosterone and oxytocin often antagonize each other. High testosterone, and this is another really fascinating thing. High testosterone may dampen oxytocin's pro social effects by down regulating receptor sensitivity. So when testosterone's really high, not just normal, but when it's, you're getting a surge of testosterone for that fight, it is going to inhibit oxytocin. That way you can go ahead and, and fight, you can compete. And it's not as pro, so you're not being as pro social. You're not worried about hurting people's feelings or whatever. You're just, you're going in there. While oxytocin can reduce aggressive tendencies with high testosterone associated with high testosterone, so the postpartum period, men's testosterone levels drop. They speculate part of it is due to stress. They're not getting as much sleep. They, you know, have a whole new person in their life. There's a lot of adjusting. Just like women develop postpartum depression, men develop postpartum depression. Not all women, not all men. But we do see these changes. And the other thing that they found in the postpartum period for men is testosterone naturally goes down for about the first six months after the birth of the baby. And some re researchers also speculated that this may be in order to increase oxytocin's activity so they can more effectively bond with the baby and to reduce testosterone's aggressive component. So they are better able to tolerate a, an infant that cries a lot. And you know, that's what babies are supposed to do. That's the only way they communicate. But I thought that was an interesting evolutionary perspective. Oxytocin increases serotonin release and receptor sensitivity in social and emotional circuits. So not everywhere we've got serotonin receptors everywhere. Oxytocin doesn't impact everything. But in our social and emotional circuits, as we increase oxytocin, we see increased sensitivity in social interactions and emotionality. Dopamine Is also enhanced by oxytocin in response to social cues, Reinforcing pro social behavior and pair bonding. When people engage in some sort of pro social behavior and oxytocin's released, it brings along some endorphins with it, brings along some dopamine. And so the body says let's do that again. Dope. Dopamine is, I want to do that again. That was beneficial for some reason. Neurochemical and your endogenous opioids or your feel good chemicals. But oxytocin increases both of them in social situations, which reinforces that pro social behavior. Oxytocin inhibits excessive norepinephrine release in the locus coralis modulating sympathetic nervous system activity. It doesn't completely shut it down. But when people are feeling safe, when they are feeling bonded, when they're feeling connected, when their oxytocin levels are normative, then they don't have the spikes and crashes of stress hormones that people who don't feel safe have. Oxytocin enhances GABA activity in the amygdala and hypothalamus, both emotion processing areas, which calms overactive threat responses, Reduces muscle tension, improves gut function and supports sleep. Gaba's our friend, is like our natural volume. And oxytocin can enhance that activity in appropriate situations. Glutamate. Oxytocin modulates glutamate release. Remember, glutamate is our main excitatory neurochemical. It's actually what GABA is made of. We break down glutamate to make gaba. So after we're stressed, then we break down the glutamate and we can relax, we can make gaba. But anyway, oxytocin modulates how much of this glutamate is released by reducing excessive excitatory signaling in the amygdala and hypocampus, which contributes to reduced anxiety and improved learning. When we're in fight or flight, we're not going to learn as well. We're too focused on survival. So if we can temper that stress reaction, we are better able to utilize that executive functioning in the prefrontal cortex. The other thing that that is interesting here. And I lost what I was going to say, but sorry, it's been one of those days. Glutamate also is one of those excitatory neurochemicals in the brain that makes it hot in there, if you will. And since oxytocin can temper glutamate, oxytocin helps. It helps your body keep the brain from being becoming excitotoxic or neurotoxic. Remember, oxytocin is neuroprotective. Oxytocin indirectly stimulates acetylcholine activity which enhances learning and sensory integration, particularly during safety or bonding situations. Now why did I go through all these? Because I can't emphasize enough that if you alter one of these things, serotonin, gaba, glutamate, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, dopamine, thyroid hormones, gonadal hormones, you're going to affect all the rest of them. And just by looking at this one thing, oxytocin, you can see that oxytocin impacts all of these things. And guess what? All of them impact oxytocin. It's always a bi directional sort of thing in our bodies in terms of anxiety disorders. Oxytocin calms the amygdala, which is our fear processing area and modulates gaba, our natural volume and norepinephrine, reducing hyper vigilance and somatic anxiety symptoms. And I think it's important that we recognize oxytocin is not going to suddenly change how somebody thinks, thinks or their perception of their emotions. But oxytocin will help downregulate the autonomic nervous system so that somatic anxiety, the, the knot in your stomach and the trembling hands and the racing heart and the fast breath that calms down, all those physiological symptoms are going to be reduced with the secretion of oxytocin and consequently gaba. Oxytocin reduces testosterone driven reactivity and inhibits the amygdala's fear threat circuitry. Yes. At the beginning of this presentation I said in certain circumstances oxytocin can actually trigger aggression. But that is only when the person feels like they are having to defend either themselves or they're having to to actively defend their child or something else. So when oxytocin is released under circumstances other than that, the it helps inhibit the fear threat circuitry so the amygdala doesn't just kind of go wild. Context matters. Oxytocin may enhance ingroup favoritism or defensive aggression if the environment feels unsafe. I said at the beginning this isn't necessarily just our love or bonding hormone. It is our survival hormone. And it's really interesting because if I'm in a group and something is threatening my group and I feel the need to defend it in order to protect my group, protection bonding connection stimulates my desire to protect myself. In adhd, oxytocin interacts with dopamine in the prefrontal cortex mod modulating motivation, attention and reward anticipation. This is huge in adhd, which is one of the reasons that animal assisted therapy was works really well with people with ADHD because it can help them counteract some of the symptoms that they have. Because oxytocin actively helps them focus more on what they need to focus on, pay attention and anticipate those rewards. In autism spectrum disorder, individuals show oxytocin receptor gene differences and reduced endogenous natural oxytocin. They've started studying in people with autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia spectrum disorders the use of intranasal oxytocin. And they found that it has, it does improve social cognition, emotional recognition, eye contact and sometimes even pro social behaviors. Avoidance. I know that's not a DSM diagnosis, but we do see a lot of avoidance in various disorders as well. It as in avoidant attachment, oxytocin enhances activity in the medial prefrontal cortex in response to social stimuli. Prefrontal cortex, your executive functioning in response to social stimuli, your brain starts going, oh, when oxytocin's there, your brain starts paying attention. Oxytocin says, hey, this is, this is going kind of cool. Why don't you, why don't you wake up and kind of pay attention to what's going on? This increases reward salience and social motivation, reducing avoidance behaviors in socially safe situations. If the person feels safe, that oxytocin gets released and they start having a different experience in that social situation. Individuals with high attachment related anxiety or avoidance can experience in defensive reactions when oxytocin is released, especially in ambiguous or emotionally risky contexts. Which is why we don't want to increase oxytocin for everybody, everywhere, all the time. No, we can't say that. We don't want people being in situations where they feel unsafe, where they feel like they might be attacked emotionally or even physically and have them try to increase oxytocin. That doesn't make any sense because in those situations where they feel risk, remember oxytocin is going to say you want to survive so you need to pay attention. In avoidantly attached or people, individuals or people with avoidant personality disorder, oxytocin systems may be hyporesponsive. And when they're supposed to activate social learning and dopamine and all that stuff, it just doesn't. It's just, it's not as responsive as it needs to be. Or we've also seen where oxytocin amplifies threat perception, reinforcing avoidance Rather than reducing it. And the thought is that when people experienced their first of attachment experiences, that it was so painful that they started associating that feeling that they get when oxytocin is released with pain and distress. So now, as you know, older people, now that they're not in that acute situation, the sensations associated with the release of oxytocin have been paired with trauma and which actually amplifies threat perception. The person's like, oh, I remember feeling like this before. Whenever I felt like this before, bad crap has happened. And we do need to recognize the impact of context and the impact of learning, of stimulus pairing and why people react the way they do. Oxytocin reduces HPA axis hyperactive hyperactivity, or the stress response, increases serotonin and decreases pro inflammatory cytokines, all of which are dysregulated in major depressive disorder in schizophrenia. Now, I promise we're almost to the end, but I want you to see that oxytocin is plays a part in most, if not all, but definitely most, mental health issues. In schizophrenia, they found that increased oxytocin can attenuate negative symptoms like anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure, avolition, not wanting to do anything, and flat affect. It also may help regulate dopamine glutamate interactions. Remember, it increases dopamine and tends to temper glutamate. And in people with schizophrenia, they tend to have a overactive stress response anyway. So increasing oxytocin can help balance that sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Clinical trials have also shown improvements in social cognition and working memory in people with schizophrenia who have used intranasal oxytocin. And finally PTSD and cptsd. Where would we be without talking about trauma? These conditions are associated with persistent stress, sympathetic activation and dysregulation of the stress response, reduced social safety and altered connectivity between the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex. So let's break that down again. When people experience trauma, it generally directly or indirectly is related to another person. Therefore, a person who has PTSD or CPTSD often doesn't feel as safe around other people. So they have that reduced social safety, which means they're not going to want to be around a lot of people, which means their oxytocin may be low. And they have altered connectivity between the amygdala, fear processing, the hippocampus, emotion processing, and the prefrontal cortex executive functioning. That helps you actually figure out what the facts are in this Context at this time, so it becomes harder for them to interpret their feelings. And a lot of the schema become threat focused. Oxytocin helps by reducing amygdala reactivity to social and environmental threats. If the person is objectively safe, then helping them get grounded, helping them feel safe before they go into that situation. Then when things occur that may have triggered their stress response in the past, the oxytocin can help blunt that a little bit because they recognize they're objectively safe. It can enhance activity in the middle medial prefrontal cortex, supporting fear, extinction and cognitive appraisal. So it supports the executive functioning ability to look at this feeling and decide, is this an actual threat in this context at this time? It modulates hippocampal function, promoting accurate encoding and reconsolidation of trauma memories. And it downregulates cortisol and reduces the overall load on the body, on the nervous system, through modulating the HPA axis. Okay, I was wrong. Personality disorders. Narcissistic personality disorder. People with NPD may show oxytocin receptor dysregulation and reduced empathy circuit activation. So they actually are wired differently. Oxytocin in people with NPD may increase empathy and cooperation, but can backfire if the person feels unsafe. In borderline personality. In safe relationships, oxytocin enhances trust and emotion regulation. But in those with attachment trauma, which most people with bpd, oxytocin may increase mistrust and hyper vigilance because again, it's been paired with that trauma. In the past when they felt like they were bonding with somebody, they started to feel safe. Then all of a sudden the rug got pulled out from under them. So now when they start feeling like, like they're bonding, they start feeling like they're feeling safe. It's that triggers that memory of being abandoned in the past, which is why we may see that splitting in borderline personality. In terms of interpersonal effects. Oxytocin improves interpersonal processing, perspective taking, and emotional interpretation. Now, I don't exactly understand how it does this, but the research is very clear that it does it. So when our oxytocin is higher, we tend to be more sensitive and better able to empathize and understand what's going on with other people. It increases attention to social cues such as facial expressions, gaze direction, and emotional tone. So you become more aware of those micro expressions. It improves the orienting response toward affiliative and emotionally salient information. Our orienting response is that response we have when something startles us. We will Turn towards what makes us feel safe. When a child is startled, a lot of times they will run directly to mama. They're not going to look around to figure out what happened. They just make a beeline for mama to help them feel safe. That's that affiliative orienting and then paying attention to the emotionally salient information. I feel afraid now that I'm, you know, at with mama. Let me look around and see what's causing me to feel afraid and it reduces attentional bias toward threat. In individuals with high trait anxiety or social phobia. If they feel safe, it can actually help them down regulate so their medial prefrontal cortex can be more active in helping them pros actively process what's going on instead of being in a full on fear based reasoning place. It facilitates memory reconsolidation during the therapeutic reprocessing of relational trauma and enhances encoding of positive social memories and interpersonal safety experiences. So when you have that surge of oxytocin, it feels pretty good. So you are more likely to encode that situation positively. And so oxy oxytocin can help our brain remember that oxytocin only reduces sympathetic activity and increases what they call approach behaviors. When safety and predictability are present, the person needs to recognize objectively that they are safe at the moment and they can anticipate what's coming. If it's a completely chaotic situation, they're not probably not going to feel safe and it's not going to feel predictable either. Increasing oxytocin in the presence of a threat can increase aggression and increasing it willy nilly will likely be ineffective. It must be a mindful intervention implemented by the person to improve particular parameters. When they're feeling distressed, they choose this distress tolerance activity that helps increase their oxytocin. When can you use it? Upon awakening, but after becoming grounded. So you wake up, you kind of get your bearings, you realize who you are, where you are, when you are, then you can increase oxytocin and that can help get the day started well prior to sleep to reduce cortisol levels after or during upset in a way that helps the person feel safer and, and that is so crucial if they're doing this. The goal is whatever they're doing to increase oxytocin helps them feel more connected, helps them feel safer, helps them feel like they're building a arsenal, if you will, of resources to help them stay safe throughout the day. When the person feels safe and is wanting to enhance feelings of relaxation and connection, they can increase their Oxytocin or when feeling pain and believing they have the power to address it, they can engage in some of these behaviors that increase oxytocin. Because we know oxytocin helps reduce pain. And it can be really helpful for children going through physical therapy. For example, if they've also got a support animal with them, we can use it in sessions. When the person feels safe with the therapist, they feel safe in the therapy room in a dynamic that models a healthy relationship, possibly the parent, child nurturing dynamic where the therapist helps the person feel safe. You know, it's like, you know that I will keep you safe. You're going to be safe as long as you're in these four walls. We can use it in those situations to help them address distress, to downregulate or to address negative symptoms like anhedonia. And, and that can be really powerful. If they're not feeling much of anything, we can help them engage in some of these activities and maybe start to feel something. When paired with gradual interpersonal exposure and CO regulation, oxytocin may support desensitization to rejection fears. What does that mean? When you're exposed to somebody and you know you want to do it with CO regulation. So if I am interacting with somebody, I want to try to pace my breathing in the same way that that they do. And if they're calm, then if I pace my breathing with them, I'm going to maintain that calmer breathing which can help me desensitized to those rejection fears. Think about a child. When you're carrying a baby, they're very sensitive to how fast you're breathing and to your tension levels. And when you co regulate with them, it helps them calm down. If they're upset and you get upset, they're going to get more upset. If they're upset and you're calm, they, they tend to calm down. They co regulate with you. So in situations where somebody may experience rejection fears, CO regulation can be really helpful, especially with children. Behaviors to support oxytocin availability. Vitamin D modulates oxytocin create creation and more than 75% of people are vitamin D deficient eating tryptophan. You find it in meat, fish, eggs, edamame, milk, pepitas. Those are your pumpkin seeds. Trp tryptophan is a serotonin precursor and serotonin supports oxytocin release. Remember I said it's always bi directional. Oxytocin increases serotonin, serotonin increases oxytocin. Omega 3s improve cell membrane fluidity and increase Oxytocin receptor sensitivity while also reducing inflammation. Reduced inflammation reduces stress on the body, reduces HPA axis and sympathetic activation. B vitamins, especially B6, B12 and folate, support oxytocin signaling. And magnesium acts as a cofactor in oxytocin receptor binding and GABA modulation. These are things people need to do all the time. It's not going to cause a surge of oxytocin. It's going to make sure that the body has the ingredients it needs to increase oxytocin when the time is right. So this is something they can do all the time. A healthy pro gut anti inflammatory diet. Other ways to increase oxytocin direct eye contact, especially between parent and infant or people with whom you're in a positive relationship. Making direct contact with somebody that you despise ain't going to increase your oxytocin in a positive way. This is, I kind of call this the zoom paradox. A lot of people got very burned out on zoom meetings and virtual trainings because there isn't that eye contact. When I am looking at somebody who is talking to me in a zoom meeting, I'm looking at my screen and not into the camera. The only way we make eye contact is if we both look into the camera, but then we're still not making eye contact. So the oxytocin release that helps people feel safe and has all these positive benefits that we get from being in face to face therapy is lost in telehealth. Solo rhythmic movement like rocking, walking, dancing alone. Drumming calms the ans and may promote self generated oxytocin release, especially in trauma. Informed sensory regulation. A lot of people when they start to feel stressed will rub their arms, that's that rhythmic moving or they'll rock or they'll do both. We've seen people do this naturally to help themselves calm down. And one of the ways it helps them calm down is it triggers a lot of those receptors, factors that the body has that is associated with caregiving. What the caregiver should have done with the infant and, and with the child. So we're basically reparenting, we're comforting ourselves with these. And by doing that it releases oxytocin. Group vocalizations increase vagal tone. When we vocalize, we increased, we trigger the vagus nerve through the trigeminal nerve and the vagus nerve. So that's a good thing. It synchronizes breathing. When we're vocalizing as a group, we're typically projecting so we're slowing our breathing and it Boosts oxytocin and endorphin levels, which is why even singing in a group can help people feel more connected with. With one another, petting or bonding with animals. Research is, you know, oodles of research on that. We know that helps if you trust the animal. Acts of altruistic kindness increase oxytocin, and it has to be altruistic. If I'm doing something kind for somebody because I expect them to do something for me, that ain't going to increase oxytocin. If I do something kind for somebody just because that increases oxytocin. If I see somebody drops all their papers and it's a windy day outside and I help them catch all the papers that are flying around even though I don't know them, that was an altruistic kindness. I've never met them, but I was trying to help. That increases oxytocin meditation focused on loving kindness or compassion. I have a video specifically on the loving kindness meditation. It can help you in envision connecting with other people and can help you connect in a way with sort of the energy of the universe. And I know that sounds sort of metaphysical, but they have shown that loving kindness meditation specifically increases oxytocin and reduces sympathetic nervous system activity. Spiritual or relational gratitude practices increase prefrontal limbic connectivity. So prefrontal cortex, where we do our executive functioning and limbic our emotions, it increases the connection between our thoughts and our feelings. Increases oxytocin and dopamine release. Relational gratitude is recognizing all the things that I'm grateful for in my relationships. Imagine that spiritual gratitude. If people have a higher power, recognizing what they're grateful for from their higher power, what they're grateful for. Today, forest bathing also increases oxytocin exposure to the natural stimuli in the. In nature, in a park, in a forest, including the terpenes, the smells, the odors that are exuded by the plants has been shown to reduce sympathetic activity, elevate oxytocin and endorphin levels. They've shown that people who are recovering after surgery or an accident actually recover better with less pain medication. When they have regular exposure to the outdoor natural environment. And I don't mean the parking lot, I mean like a nice park or a path. They've shown that helps a lot. Physical warmth. I learned this one and I think it's fascinating. Physical warmth mimics caregiving conditions, stimulating thermoregulatory centers linked to oxytocin release, which enhance relaxation. I remember growing up in Florida, going out and laying out in the sun and feeling this just incredible sense of relaxation when I could feel the heat of the sun on my face and I never knew where that came from. This is where it comes from. It's the recognition. If a caregiver is hugging their child, they feel the warmth of their caregiver. So warmth actually mimics those caregiving conditions. Deep pressure stimulation with weighted vests, blankets, swaddling help, great help with infants. Bear hugs, you know, give your, give your kid or your significant other a great big old bear hug. Pressure vests or even corsets and shapewear that are not too tight increase serotonin and dopamine and gaba, reduce cortisol and enhance the oxytocin calming loop. And I, I actually didn't expect to find research on shapewear, but it's out there. And anything that increases the pressure around the core, like where you would get pressure if you were getting a great big hug, actually does increase oxytocin in environments where you're feeling safe. However, excessive or prolonged compression can restrict bodily function, activating the stress response and discomfort or trauma. Associations with pressure or restriction can trigger cortisol release instead of oxytocin. Always consider the pairing. Laughter triggers the vagus nerve, reduces cortisol and enhances interpersonal synchrony, leading to oxytocin and endorphin release. We all can benefit from a good laugh and that actually you don't even have to be with other people. Laughing actually increases oxytocin. Co regulated deep breathing activates the vagus nerve, increases parasympathetic tone and indirectly boosts oxytocin, which can be really helpful if somebody is spiraling, especially a child. If you're able to breathe together, you know, let's breathe with mommy. That's what we used to do. Creative collaboration and shared problem solving also increases mutual trust and stimulates oxytocin release in safe conditions. In als, even doing puzzles together or gardening together increases oxytocin levels. Playing games together, doing teamwork or projects can stimulate that bonding between people and that sense of safety and, you know, subsequent oxytocin. When safety is perceived, oxytocin promotes social approach, trust, empathy, caregiving and group bonding. Cuz after all, we're safer in a group than we are by ourself. So when we do nice things for other people, we are trying to encourage that group to be connected so we can be, you know, all of us against the world. When safety is perceived, oxytocin activates the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing Inflammation and enhancing gut and immune health. It facilitates pro social memory consolidation, cognitive flexibility and self other awareness. But when a threat is perceived, it enhances defensive aggression and threat awareness. Mama bear comes out. It can increase mistrust or avoidance if social cues are unsafe or the social cues are perceived to be unsafe. If I have, if I'm perceiving this cue because in the past that indicated unsafeness. If I'm seeing that cue now, I'm going to perceive it as unsafe based on my past experiences, even if this person doesn't mean anything by it. So oxytocin can increase mistrust and it modulates amygdala and HPA axis activation to prime survival behavior. Hence it's a survival hormone. I know I went through a bunch of stuff but I thought it was so fascinating all the things that oxytocin does and all of the ways it impacts our physical as well as our mental health. I'm gonna look at your questions in, in just a second and I think it's something that we can encourage people to focus on when they're meditating, when they're feeling safe. It's something we can encourage them to do in order to amplify the effects of therapy and everything else that they're doing. You are quite welcome. Jay Holmes. You are quite welcome. Laura and Paula. Samantha, you have your name as your handle or whatever we call it. So I've got you as soon as you logged in. So don't worry about that. And welcome. Glad you're here. You are quite welcome, Alyssa. Roller girl, always great to see you. I hope you're feeling well. I hope you're having a good day today. Well, hello from Belgium. Good to see you, Christina. Restoring your microbiome can do wonders. I actually got my mother in law started. She was having terrible problems with an ulcer and stress and I actually got her started on a complex probiotic supplement that I believe in and I'm not pushing that, I'm just sharing. And she's actually been able to come off a lot of her proton pump and HEB inhibitor and other gut medications. Since she's added that, she gave it to her sister who also has come off of a bunch of her medications. And last I heard she was getting ready to try to give it to my father in law and, and I'm not sure how that went but she is someone who is typically very skeptical and I obviously didn't tell her take this and it's going to change your life. I thought, hey, maybe it'll help A little bit with because her gut was so messed up from the stress, but it did amazing, amazing things for her. So the gut is really important in our overall health as well as our mental health. And when the gut is in pain, it sends that stress signal to the brain which just intensifies all of the other distress in the body. My point, with all that is over mind, it is great to work on that microbiome recognize. If you haven't watched the videos that I did on having a healthy gut, please do. Stress itself will alter the microbiome. So just taking a supplement isn't going to do it unless you're also, or at least not over the long period. Unless you're also reducing your stress levels. You're. If you don't reduce your stress, then you're going to have to keep taking the, the supplements to try to balance things out. Oh, Paula, I understand what you're saying about pollen allergies. I have wicked allergies to pine pollen and were looking for some property right now and I keep finding these properties, beautiful properties that have been cleared and replanted in pine and I'm like, oh no. Aside from the fact that I'd be dusting every other day because they, they are messy, messy trees. Yeah, pollen is wicked. They. There is some research and I'm not a medical doctor, I'm not recommending it. I'm just educating. There is some research that locally sourced bee pollen can actually help you develop a tolerance to some of the local pollens. You know, I, I would encourage you to do your own research on that. But I hear you about the different allergen. Hello, Nancy S. You've probably logged off already, but it was good to see you. Glad to see see people from, from Maryland, another one of those states that requires those live CEUs. Okey dokey. I'm not seeing a lot in the way of questions, so I am going to go ahead and log off. Have a wonderful rest of your week and I will see you on Monday for the live AMA and then next Wednesday for our CEU class.