Love promotes health.
Love has consequences for health and well-being. Engaging in joyful activities such as love may activate areas in the brain responsible for emotion, attention, motivation and memory (i.e., limbic structures), and it may further serve to control the autonomic nervous system, i.e., stress reduction. This specific CNS activity pattern appears to exert protective effects, even on the brain itself. Moreover, anxiolytic effects of pleasurable experiences may occur by promotion of an inhibitory tone in specific areas of the brain. Thus, love and pleasure clearly are capable of stimulating health, well-being and (re)productivity: This wonderful biological instrument makes procreation and maintenance of organisms and their species a deeply rewarding and pleasurable experience, thus ensuring survival, health, and perpetuation.
Charité-University Medicine Berlin, Institute for General Practice and Family Medicine, Schumannstrasse 20/21, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
Tobias
T
Esch
George B
GB
Stefano
D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008149:Love; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011603:Psychophysiology; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology