Mahatma Ghandi once wrote, “Where there is love, there is life.” Loving and stable relationships can help to improve a person’s ability to manage stress and can help to decrease anxiety and depression. Love is a powerful emotion, and it can be healing. While love cannot fix everything or prevent someone from developing a mental illness, it does support good overall physical and mental health. The research clearly shows that loving and healthy relationships, as well as good social support from family and friends, are important for improving mental health.
Love is more than just an isolated feeling. Science now provides us with evidence of what is experienced when we are in loving relationships involving various neurotransmitters and hormones in our bodies that affect us systemically. When we are falling in love, chemicals associated with the reward circuit flood our brain, producing a variety of physical and emotional responses. elevated levels of dopamine activate the reward circuit, helping to make love a pleasurable experience similar to euphoria. Oxytocin, known also as the love hormone, provokes feelings of contentment, calmness, and security. In addition to the positive feelings romance brings, love also deactivates the neural pathway responsible for negative emotions, such as fear and social judgment.
Don’t forget self-love. It is a cliché to say that you cannot love anyone else until you love yourself, but there is truth in the statement. The healthiest relationships are between two people who rely on each other but are also independent. They love each other, but they also love and value themselves.
Relationships that are healing in nature are loving, kind, trusting, and benefit everyone involved. So let’s spread the love!
Source: Psychiatry Advisor, The Positive Effects of Love on Mental Health
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