Today’s tip: LET’S GET ADDICTED TO… OXYTOCIN
Dear colleagues and friends,
How was your night? How was your weekend? I hope you managed to disconnect with work and connect with your loved ones, as best you could!
Perhaps you remember a 20 year old movie -oh my God, I’m old!- titled “Pay it forward”, with Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and the super kid Haley Joel Osment. If you are too young to have seen it or to even remember the name, keep it to yourself (please!) and make a point of watching it with as many people as you can. It is worth it and it is COVID-19 appropriate 😉. The movie is very much in line with our lives and jobs because it is ‘simply’ about changing the world, one act, one day, one person at the time. What does this have to do with drugs and addiction? With drugs, nothing. Oxytocin is a hormone, not a drug. With addiction, little. You cannot get totally hooked on this hormone but the more you get it released the better you feel and then a virtuous cycle begins by making others feel good as well. Nowadays, when we easily get hooked on things, movies, series, food, looks, power, image, and self it might be very useful to remember that little things matter, that kindness is more powerful than any virus and even more contagious than COVID-19. If there is a time when we must pay it forward, exercise kindness and get addicted to the wonders of doing good to others, it is now! Keep it up troopers, our new normal will be better than our past.
The power of kindness:
Pay it forward: you don’t pay love back, you pay it forward:
Oxytocin Research:
https://www.jgh.ca/research/psychiatry-research-division/research-units/oxytocin/
7 things you probably didn’t know about oxytocin and the science of love: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethporges/2016/02/12/7-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-oxytocin-and-the-science-of-love/#2372d71e670b