Tapping the hormone of calm, love and healing
This book is an unashamed sales pitch for the wonderful hormone that is oxytocin. It seeks to enthuse the reader about this hidden gem that we all possess in the hope that we will reach deep within ourselves to harness its power. When the world around us is fraught with stress and anxiety causing us to release health-harming chemicals into our system, this book leads you to believe that oxytocin will be our saviour.
It is a well-known fact that our lives have changed exponentially over the last century. While we can now enjoy some of the luxuries that were not previously afforded to us, we constantly sacrifice down time by setting high expectations of ourselves and allowing our daily lives to be invaded by a barrage of information, mainly driven by technology. Our bodies cannot distinguish between a family crisis and the latest offensive video circulating on Facebook, so it responds by releasing the same flight or fight hormones into our system.
Kerstin Uvnas Moberg feels passionately about communicating the importance of balancing our fight or flight mechanisms with a ‘calm and connection’ mechanism that comes in the form of oxytocin. However, while reading this book I struggled to prevent my mind from wandering to all the other items on my ‘to do’ list that require attention.
The author admits to making some leaps of faith to link the findings from her research (which seems to have focused almost exclusively on subjecting lab rats to various experiments) to how this may have an impact on human behaviour. It is obvious that finding human subjects with which to test her results raises several ethical issues, but nonetheless the fragility of some of the connections make her argument a little unconvincing at times.
Oxytocin is already a renowned hormone in the field of midwifery, and other than making some already well-researched statements, it doesn't really teach us anything new. Having said that, it may make us re-visit physiology textbooks. As midwives we are more than aware of the physiology of the fetus and how the effects of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system cause us to see some alarming changes on a cardiotocograph, yet we rarely translate this is to an understanding of our own bodies. The findings of the experiments conducted by the author showed that oxytocin made the rats less fearful and more curious. Oxytocin was released during periods of intimacy and physical touch, re-enforcing what we already understand about the importance of mothers keeping their infants close, skin-to-skin contact and kangaroo care.
The text also makes a strong case for the importance of physical touch and massage when providing intrapartum care as this promotes the release of oxytocin, which has huge benefits for the progress of normal labour, without the need for medical intervention while also lowering heart rates and blood pressure.
The book's target audience is somewhat unclear. Although it has elements that will be of interest to the general population, there is a very scientific explanation of the nervous system that may cause readers from a non-medical background to ‘glaze over’. In addition, the constant references to lab rats may leave a bad taste in the mouth of the general population. Conversely, there are too many iterations of words like ‘probably’ and ‘likely’ to make it credible enough for a reader from a more scientific background.
What this book may do, however, is make us stop and think about our hectic lifestyles and the negative impact this has on our health. For me personally it has opened my eyes to the benefits of quiet meditation and as a result, has improved my quality of sleep. So, for that, I am grateful.
Although it is apparent that this book only scratches the surface of the potential of oxytocin, Kerstin may just be onto something that further research will uncover in the future. But for now, it is still very early days.