Secrets of Your Cells: Discovering Your Body's Inner Intelligence (14 page)

This tend-and-befriend response goes back even further than human hunter-gatherers; it evolved from female primates’ genetic programming. Male primates, with their different molecular profile, are often competitive and combative, withdrawing to take care of their wounds—physical or emotional. Psychologists think this basic biochemistry explains why men withdraw into solitary silence in response to stress or anger. They go to their man cave; women go to their kitchens or cell phones.

In oxytocin we have a molecular messenger, a mood changer, that can calm us down and promote closeness with other people. And it is a simple fact of gender that these molecules are more easily “managed” by the female of the species because of her abundance of estrogen.

EXPLORATION

Grab a Dose of Oxytocin

Explore the quickest, easiest way to receive an immediate, welcome dose of oxytocin: hug someone. Give your sacred cells the gift of connection.

Enhanced Bonding and the Oxytocin Effect

The release of oxytocin into the blood can be initiated by kinship, connection, and physical touch. A newborn nuzzles his mama, recognizing her smell; she in turn nourishes him, and her touching and stroking encourage him to bond with her. And so it is with adults. Touch your friend’s hand, massage your lover’s shoulders; you are stimulating molecular messages that enhance emotional bonding.

A lover’s sensual touch heightens oxytocin production, and this explains why foreplay enhances sexual arousal. Levels of oxytocin increase during sexual stimulation and peak during orgasm. In men, after ejaculation, high levels of oxytocin are maintained for about a half hour; in women, the levels drop sharply shortly after orgasm.
¹⁵
Maybe longer-lasting post-orgasm oxytocin explains why men often ease right into sleep after sex, as one of the effects of oxytocin is deep relaxation. Another effect is fuzzy thinking; if you feel “spaced out” after lovemaking, this may be what’s going on—oxytocin temporarily reduces the capacity to think and reason.

Production of oxytocin increases with age; though women may lose childbearing abilities, as time passes the capacity for friending and bonding expands. Men involved in caring for their children also have elevated oxytocin levels and bond better with their babies.
¹⁶
When Dad holds his child, his testosterone level drops, in part because his “love chemicals” increase. Fortunately for us, there are many other “love chemicals”: we have a pleasure pharmacy at our fingertips—literally.

“Better Bonding” through Chemistry?

Oxytocin may be the primary biochemical basis for human attachment and for achieving close emotional relationships. Warmth, imagery, massage, and hypnosis are some ways to spur connection. Drugs that encourage closeness include ecstasy and marijuana. Oxytocin may be present in a number of plants, including
Cannabis sativa
and blue cohosh root, or these plants may stimulate oxytocin release from our cells.

Bonding—like the perfect fit of a cellular hug between matched molecules—promotes health in many ways. Both blood pressure and stress hormones decrease in animals that receive injections of oxytocin. Their wounds heal better and faster. Best of all, these benefits last for several weeks after the final injection. Rabbits that were petted did not succumb to experimental bacterial infections that sickened their unstroked bunny relatives. This helps us understand why love, lovemaking, pets, and petting can promote health and relieve stress—and why close relationships can protect us from the harmful effects of stress. At present, the female of our species lives longer than the male—but might it be healthier bonding that prolongs our lives?

Like our cells, we bond with those we trust, know, and respect. Our cells show us the way: if they don’t trust the information they receive from an invader or stress molecule, they marshal their forces to eliminate it. When, where, and from whom do you receive love and connection? Each time you make contact, you are sending molecules of love to your cells. And isn’t our sacred nature imbued with love?

The Bungee Effect in Relationships

I have recently begun to understand the “bungee effect,” and I will share a personal story to illustrate it. For decades I had been in a long-distance love relationship. His scent intoxicated me, his touch enthralled me, and for twenty-four hours each time we met, we couldn’t get enough of each other—body and soul. I’d gotten used to this bizarre arrangement, and though I longed for something more, it had me hooked. Each time we separated and he disappeared “into the sunset” of a thousand miles away, I got on with my life—the bungee stretched to its full extension. Then, after a while—usually around three months—I felt a tug on the cord. I began to think about him, wonder if he was OK, and then I needed to know. I needed another “hit”: a voice, a touch, a connection. He had similar experiences while
living out there at the other end of our tether, content with no contact—until . . .

I was perplexed about this pattern for many years before I made the mental connection: oxytocin. When we came together we gave each other massive doses of cellular “medicine”—love molecules—enough to get us through the next few months content and at peace. Then the dosage wore off and
snap
went the bungee cord. We needed replenishment, and we had “the urge to merge” and fuel one another’s bonding molecules once more. Intimacy connects people at a cellular level, a bond that is not easily broken for good.

Prayer Receptors?

We have learned a great deal about how our cells listen for molecular messages, but what about other, less measurable communications such as intention, spiritual guidance, and prayer?

While a resident at San Francisco General Hospital, cardiologist Randy Byrd laid the framework for groundbreaking studies on the power of prayer by exploring whether prayer would help people in the ICU who had suffered heart attacks. Though the patients in the study did not know they were being prayed for, they had fewer second cardiac episodes and complications than those who weren’t prayed for.
¹⁷
Since then, numerous studies have arrived at similar as well as contradictory conclusions: being on the receiving end of prayers may improve physical health.
¹⁸
Our cells must be able to get the message somehow. Where are our cells’ receptors for prayer? So far, none have been revealed. Scientists such as Larry Dossey, another pioneer in the power of nonlocal healing, have speculated that prayer energy travels as extremely low-frequency (elf) electromagnetic waves that somehow touch and influence our cells.
¹⁹
Though it is a mystery at present, here we find another form of cellular call and response.

Loving Our Cells, Our Selves

The sacred messages from this chapter are to regard our cells’ ability to listen and receive with gratitude and reverence and to consider the ways in which we do this in the fullness of our lives. Let’s pay attention to the words we say to ourselves and others. Let’s watch the ways we reach out to connect. And remember: our cells are listening.

Our cells are formed in the intimate embrace of molecules receiving from God the holy spark of life. They are sacred vessels for divine love seeking connection in the present moment. While cells are real and solid—observable entities that make us who we are physically—they are also reflections of mystical teachings through the ages. Contained within them are lessons about giving and receiving, opening and softening, nurturing and protecting, community and truth.

Our cells can only receive when they are open to recognizing the information offered to them. Let’s ask ourselves: How like our cells can we be? Are we open to receiving what fits best? Do we give to others, as our cells give their information freely? Do we offer messages that masquerade as truth, or do we share ourselves with integrity? Are we living in the
now?

Our cells hold the answers to all these questions. Let’s remember to listen.

REFLECTION

How receptive am I?

How deeply do I listen?

How well do I communicate?

What and how do I communicate best—words, emotions, prayer, energy fields?

What do I need to communicate?

Do I speak the truth, live the truth?

Does my usual communication foster cooperation?

How do I hold my relationships as sacred?

What are my most sacred relationships?

We all have much more listening to do.

— MARY OLIVER

Chapter 4

The Fabric of Life–Choose

Each cell can take in information about its circumstances and respond to it purposefully.

— BOYCE RENSBERGER
Life Itself

W
hat is it that tugs on the edges of our cells and consciousness and urges change? What convinces the cell to choose one focus of attention over another?

Cell biologists have long believed that a cell behaves the way it does because of genes, proteins, and signaling molecules. Yet pioneering scientists now show that by physically twisting, bending, and pushing the cells,
mechanical forces
help control which action a cell performs.
¹

Embedded in the design of our cells is a translucent, dynamic webbing that decides the cell’s direction. While the external receptors we have learned about in preceding chapters
listen
to our molecules, the fabric or “strings” of our cells
manifest action.
Connecting inside with outside, the strings vibrate, push, and pull, guiding the cell into delivering what it’s supposed to. A new fluttering on its strings plays a new tune of activities. This is the way into the secrets of our cells.