Love potion to improve relationships

Many of us believe that positive communication with partners while discussing stressful issues is an impossible task. But there is good news for all of us, who want to end up the discussion in a positive way.

Swiss researchers are working on a love potion that will drive away all such conflicts. They are exploring the benefits of oxytocin for helping couples communicate better.

Oxytocin has been pronounced as beneficial for reducing anxiety, producing feelings of well-being, empathy, bonding, and sexual arousal.

Oxytocin increased positive communication behavior in relation to negative behavior and reduced salivary cortisol, i.e., their stress levels, compared to placebo.

"We are just beginning to understand the powerful effects of hormones and chemicals released by the body in the context of important social interactions," a news agency reported John Krystal, M.D., the editor of Biological Psychiatry as saying.

"As this knowledge grows, the question of how to best use our developing capacities to pharmacologically alter social processes will become an important question to explore," he added.

Author Beate Ditzen, Ph.D., noted that this was the first study of its kind and important because it evaluated real-time natural couple behavior in the laboratory.

Oxytocin might help us to pronounce the effects of a standard treatment, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, by possibly making the benefits of social interaction more accessible to the individual. But it probably will not replace these standard treatments.

They clarify that this study does not show that oxytocin should currently be used as a treatment itself and the effects of repeated administration have not been evaluated in humans.