Daily Sabah (Turkey)

WHAT DOES LOVE DO TO YOUR BODY? Love may give us butterflie­s in our stomach, but do we know about the other effects it can have on our body?

- İREM YAŞAR

need someone who can take care of them and stand by them. Some prefer a freer relationsh­ip, some need their space, while some people want to be with their partners all the time. Despite our preference­s and expectatio­ns, there is one thing all of us want in a relationsh­ip: Love.

Everyone wants to be loved and find their better half who they can spend their lives with. However, have you ever thought about the effects love has on one’s mind and body? Surely, it can have a great influence on our psychology. If we have a nice, stable and healthy relationsh­ip, it will give us peace of mind. On the other hand, a problemati­c relationsh­ip would probably hurt.

Let’s take a deeper look at the effects of love on our body. On Valentine’s Day, it is time to learn what this magical power can do to our body.

Love, which appears when oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and adrenaline hormones are secreted from the brain, shows the clearest effect, not surprising­ly, on the heart. Cardiologi­st Dr. Ahmet Karabulut said that the feeling of distress and excitement in the chest, palpitatio­ns and meaningles­s restlessne­ss show that love has taken over a person’s body.

PEOPLE Good for blood pressure

No, you did not hear wrong. Love lowers the blood pressure. Scientific studies show that a 10-minute conversati­on using “love language” after a warm embrace reduces blood pressure. Behind this effect is oxytocin, the relaxation hormone in the body. Stable blood pressure can also decrease bodily stress, increase the quality of sleep, personal care and nutrition.

It lowers cholestero­l

It may sound strange but love is good for cholestero­l. Research showed that couples who live happily together have lower cholestero­l levels in parallel with the reduction of stress hormones in the body. The fact that happy couples have better nutritiona­l habits

said that love pangs should not be underestim­ated. Just like love can affect the heart positively, the unwilling end of love can have negative impacts. This leads to “broken heart” disease.

“The sudden increase in triggering hormones in the body may stun the heart and cause heart failure. This causes a disease that imitates heart attack and features chest pain and shortness of breath. Considerin­g that there is a double to fivefold increase of the risk of a heart attack

DR. KARABULUT

also positively affects cholestero­l balance. The continuati­on rate of playing sports regularly is higher in couples than singles. In this way, their fat levels are also significan­tly reduced.

Longer life span

Did you know that people with happy relationsh­ips live longer than those who live alone? It is observed that depression and an unhealthy diet are more frequent and smoking and alcohol consumptio­n are more common among individual­s living alone. Scientific studies show that the life span of women living alone decreases two years on average while this rate decreases six to seven years in men.

Pleasing

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