Word: cortisol
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...neural circuits, all activating one another in a complex feedback loop. When you are stuck in traffic or overwhelmed at work or worn down by the kids, the hypothalamus--a structure buried deep in the midbrain--tells your adrenal gland to pump out a supply of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol, in turn, tells your body to stop worrying about its basic metabolic needs and instead to "do the things you need to do to save yourself from whatever created the stress," says University of Virginia neuroscientist James Coan...
Being married somehow helps the body circumvent this mess, either by hushing the hypothalamus or reducing cortisol production. Coan and his colleagues conducted an experiment in which married women underwent brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During the scans, the women were told they were going to receive a painful electric shock. The researchers then watched to see how the subjects' brains responded to the threat and found that among happily married women, hypothalamus activity declined sharply if husbands held their wives' hands during the experiment. Women who reported being less satisfied with their marriage--and women whose...
...good that comes with a happy one. In a series of studies, Kiecolt-Glaser and her husband, immunologist Ronald Glaser, also of the Ohio State University College of Medicine, found that "negative marital interactions," such as arguments, name-calling and nonverbal cues like eye-rolling lead to increases in cortisol and decreases in immune function and even wound-healing. The effects were observed in both sexes, but particularly strongly in women. The eye-rolling studies go even deeper than that, with related research conducted by marital expert John Gottman of the Gottman Institute in Seattle revealing just how sensitive spouses...
...used to eating junk. Junk food distorts a person's hormonal profile, says O'Keefe. Note, for example, the previously mentioned drop in insulin that leaves a person hungry not long after eating a heavy meal. Studies suggest that fatty, sugary foods promote excretion of the stress hormone cortisol, which seems to further stimulate appetite for calorie-dense foods. And the big post-meal spikes in blood sugar are more likely in people who don't exercise or those who carry weight around their abdomen. All of it makes it tough for people to stop eating junk food once they...
Canadian biologist Katherine Wynne-Edwards and psychologist Anne Storey have shown that the similarities don't stop there. New or expectant fathers holding either their baby or a doll wrapped in a blanket that recently held--and still smells of--a newborn experienced a rise in prolactin and cortisol (a well-known stress hormone associated with mothering) and a drop in testosterone. When the men listened to a tape of a crying newborn and were shown a videotape of a newborn struggling to nurse, the ones who reported the greatest urge to comfort the baby were the ones whose hormone...