The amazing story between love and health

Amore, Ndolo, Amour, Love, Nkogni, Eding, Lieben, Yide, Litondô, Iding, Gwehâ

A word that carries the world.
The key that can open any door.
What a pleasure to be loved or to love!

More than a baby, an elder or a sick person, everybody wants to be loved,
Nobody likes to be hated! So why not celebrate love?

Feelings of love

Love, What a wonderful drug! A mysterious and complex sensation that carries the key of life. Who can swear that a human’s mother loves more than a lion’s mother or a bird’s mother? It is a terrible event/phenomenon generating from the senses and coordinated from the brain with complex chemical mediators, impressive effects, social impacts and physical consequences above what one can guess.

Even before fetal life calls for love, and within delivery, the new born experiences the pleasure of love with the mother. Without being thought of, they communicate as old friends. There are unique moments in life when we can better experience it: A mother breastfeeding her baby while he is playing with her, lovers in a calm garden where there is no witness, friends meeting again after a long separation, a soldier back to the family at the end of a war… then a stranger, a traveler or an exiled one back to his native land!

After creating the world, God saw that all was nice, then he said let us make Man in our own image. He did it with love, he made it perfect; love is the perfect feeling that exists. Love gives happiness, fortune, health, inspiration, respect, light. In fact, love is more than a magic drug that can cure all sickness. Even studies can’t easily evaluate the effects and benefits of love on health and on everyday life, because they are so complex, many and immaterial but so efficient. Just an ‘’I love you’’ from a person you consider seriously can make your day special and different! ‘’luv you’’ to a patient can bring relief from serious depression, anorexia, weakness, apathy or any other deep suffering. What about a bunch of nice flowers, a portion/piece of chocolate, or a card received even without a words from somebody we really hold in esteem? It’s more than a volume of drugs, more than any other cure.

Everybody is happy to be loved and to love, and it’s difficult to really explain what we feel when we are in love; big or small, rich or poor, healthy or sick, we feel almost the same thing and would like somebody to say ‘’I love you’’.

The mechanism of love in our body

Falling in love is almost as what we feel when taking cocaine. Taking cocaine or falling in love have the same effect on the brain with the impression of euphoria. Studies have shown that some areas of the brain are excited when you go through any of these experiences or listen to a word, to a piece of music that is linked to what or the person you love.

When going through facts, we discover that love results from indescriptible neurons network with lot of mediator releases and chemical interactions. Activations, blocking of nervous ways to allow the expression of the external stimulations and modify our behavior before signalling if we appreciate or not, we care or we don’t care. All these networks are under the limbic system also called ‘’emotional brain’’. At the center of this there is a messenger of feelings called Dopamine in charge of steps from initial stress to the pleasure under the control of hypothalamus, a small center commanding both feelings, pleasure, sleepiness, hunger, thirst and temperature… It can then send the signal of adrenalin and noradrenalin that may order the reaction of heart, breathing, with fast heart beats, increase of blood circulation, loss of appetite… leading to stress; then dopamine interaction balancing effects.

Amandamid, serotonin and endorphins are great makers of love but the main hormon at the center of this feeling is oxytocin. Then it suppress agressive hormones even alcohol effects to stop stress and keep confidence and empathy. It’s the first that stand as from birth to command the production of milk, the pleasure of feeding and modulate the relationship between the mother and the baby. Oxytocin is the moderator of love and will always respond to any application for love from childhood till elderly age.

When and how to love ?

Don’t frustrate children from affection; even if you can’t offer money or gifts to an unfortunate person or to a child passing by your way, share a bit of love with him. A friend, a neighbor is sick, steal some of your time and show him a bit of love; it has no cost and can’t get expired. That smile carrying some love from your heart, even someone in a coma, even a criminal will never forget that.

A ‘’valentine’s day’’ is not enough, we need more days and weeks for love; for those we have chosen to enjoy the blessings of our heart, because you cannot love without enjoying happiness. What can be the cost of the happiness you get from the love of your country/fatherland, from your mother or from somebody you feel to be with forever? Those things, even you are dying for, you can’t feel the pain of your body, but the suffering of missing them. Because love is the essence of life, the reason of why to be or not to be.