Oxytocin: Your Brain’s Natural Balancer

Season 4- Episode 55

In this episode of the Returning to Us Podcast, Lauren announces the show’s move to the Five IVES website and wraps up the nervous system series with a look at hormones. Cortisol and Adrenaline—our “stress squad”—can throw us off balance, but Oxytocin, the “love hormone,” helps restore calm and bring us back into our Window of Tolerance.

Lauren shares simple, science-backed ways to boost Oxytocin—like hugs, eye contact, and laughter—that support mood, sleep, and nervous system regulation. She reminds us that while hormones impact how we feel, they don’t have to take over. Small, mindful actions can help us reclaim calm and clarity.

If you haven't already, check out Five Ives to see how strategies like this can be applied to adults, especially in the workplace. Five Ives works with staff in high burnout jobs to help them incorporate regulation strategies into their daily routines.

Try it at home tip: Try any of the tips suggested in the last few episodes about nervous system regulation.

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Transcript:

Lauren Spigelmyer:

“I am so gosh darn excited to record this episode. But before I even tell you about the episode itself, I must say this because I forgot to say the last episode. And this is extremely important. So I want to get serious here before I get silly. We are moving the 5 eyes. Nope reverse, strike it. We are moving. The returning to us, podcast.Okay, podcast. Is staying. The same topics are staying the same. I'm still going to be on here talking to y'all. But we're going to move it off of the behavior Hub website. Because if you've been listening now for a couple weeks or months. You've been hearing me talk a lot about 5 Ives. So I have partnered up with a woman named Dr. Jessica Doring, who is an amazing human being. And we have co-created the organization called 5 Ives. So that said, I'm feeling like this, information really belongs on the 5 Ives website, because 5 Ives does have a website. It's had one for a little while now. But I've been continuing to host on The Behavior Hub website, because that's where it 1st launched. So the Returning to Us podcast is still saying the returning to us podcast it's still serving the same people. It's talking about similar topics. But you'll no longer find the podcast. Episodes on the behavior Hub, website. If you want the show notes or the links or the the transcript, because we do post all of that with each post with each episode, it's on the website. It's no longer going to be on behavior. Hub, it's going to be on 5 Ives podcast and blog page. And when you type in 5 Ives, you'll see at the top podcast and blog it'll all be on there for you. I am going to put links to that page on the behavior hub site. So if you ever go back to the behavior hub site and you're like, where is it? It will send you over to 5 Ives. If you're listening on a podcast player, then this really doesn't impact you at all unless you want to go look at the show notes or the transcripts, or any of the links that we utilize for for the show notes and and transcripts. Okay, I'm going to try and remember to say that again at the end of the episode, because this is the last episode that is going to launch on the behavior Hub website. The next episode is going to be kind of a reset, a new season and posted over on 5 Ives website.

But today we're going to wrap up this nervous system series because the next series is going to be about the 5 Ives. Today, we're talking about hormones and the nervous system. It's the chemistry behind your chaos. So really, what's happening here is there are Big 3 that we're gonna talk about. We're going to talk about cortisol and adrenaline which are going to go together, and then we'll talk about oxytocin. I talked about kind of alluded to some of these in the last episode. I did talk about them, but not in depth. Today we'll talk about them in depth. But how do they really mess with you, or maybe support you and your nervous system regulation.

Okay, so let's jump right into it. Starting with a little truth, bomb. Your body is basically a walking smoothie of chemicals and hormones are the ingredients that flavor everything from how energized you feel to your emotions that are coming out. It's like a bittersweet thing to hear. They're little chemical messengers, and they help your brain talk to the rest of your body and sometimes they work against us, and sometimes they work for us. But when it comes to your nervous system and your subconscious existence must have a lot to say.

So let's jump right in cortisol and adrenaline. We're going to call them the stress squad. They go together. These are 2 probably well-known famous hormones. You probably have heard cortisol adrenaline, cortisol adrenaline, aka norepinephrine, and that said, you don't really need to know that term. So forget. I even said that cortisol adrenaline stress squad. That sounds bad. They're not bad. They're built to protect you. They're good, just not always good. Cortisol is actually one of its higher states early in the morning, when you wake up when you 1st wake up. but it helps to wake you up. Its purpose is to wake you up. Its purpose is to help you focus and help you respond to stress. Yes, we associate it with like, oh, my cortisol levels are high. I'm stressed out. Yes, but it's helping you respond to that high level of stressed out. Adrenaline is like gas pedal. Your emergency gas pedal. It kicks in really fast when you're in danger, or you're under an immense amount of pressure at work moves real fast. That said, here's the catch. When you are always stressed. When you have kids, young kids, especially multiple kids when you are having a lot to do with work when your workload is overwhelming or your job is stressful, or you just feel like you're so overscheduled that you have no time to breathe. These hormones get stuck on like high like on mode. They're they're always turned on. They're stuck on, and although they're designed to help you and save you. And they have, and they do. We don't want them to always be on. It tells your nervous system. Stay in survival mode. You're not okay. And sometimes we really don't feel okay. But what happens here is like the hormones come into play. They turn on because you're stressed out. And then you stay stressed out, or you don't know how to get out of a stressed out state, and the hormones stay on, and the more that you stay there, and the more that they're on, the more that becomes more of a stabilized state for you, which means you remain in survival mode. We don't want that. If your heart is racing, if your muscles are tight, if your brain gets foggy, if your body is yelling at you, something isn't right. It's a little bit of a cue that something isn't right, and it could be some of the opposite, too.

So let's think about this where cortisol and adrenaline like really come into play very positively. Let's view them in a positive light here for a second, because that didn't all sound very fun. If you are being chased by a saber-toothed tiger which doesn't exist anymore. Leave it there. It'd be a scary dog. Those chemicals, those hormones they kick in, they tell you. Run the heck away, and you should, unless you plan to fight that bear or dog or saber-toothed tiger. What's not so helpful is that in today's world. You're feeling these chemicals turn on and stay on because you're just trying to get through Monday. That's not okay. No, that's not okay. It's just that we don't want that to be okay. We don't want that to be the norm. We don't want that to be your stable state. So essentially, it's really not okay. Okay. Here's the good news, because I just dropped some like not so fun bombs on you.

Let's talk the last hormone that we've not discussed yet other than my introduction oxytocin. It's like the calm down connector. It's what we call the love chemical or the love hormone.So this one brings everything into balance, and it's the connection, hormone. It's the love chemical. It's the warm and fuzzy one. Oxytocin helps you to feel safe. It helps you to feel connected. It helps you to feel calm. It tells your nervous system, hey? Dude? Hey, friend, we're good. You can chill. Now, problem is, we're not getting enough of that. So how do we get more of it? What most people associate initially right away with oxytocin? And this, this is true, is like physical touch. So hugs making like positive eye contact with someone, or like getting a smile from someone, gives you some oxytocin holding someone's hand, cuddling with someone, even cuddling a pet can release oxytocin. But there are a couple more surprisingly abnormal ones like laughing, especially laughing with someone. Co-regulation releases oxytocin. Holding a baby or a puppy even just being in someone's trusting presence like if someone is a trusting person, being in their physical presence potentially, even being in there like won't be as strong of a dose, but being in their like digital presence, if you can see them or hear it in their voice, maybe a little small dose of oxytocin better if you're in person. But the more oxytocin in your system, the easier it is for your nervous system to shift back into that window of tolerance or activate or, like go into that rest and digest rest and recover that, like healthy side of the parasympathetic nervous system, I shouldn't say healthy, because it's not healthy versus unhealthy and there's not positive, and negatives not good and bad. I don't know how to tell you about the part of the nervous system that's like it's on the negative side. But it's not the negative part, because it's actually designed for you to rest and recover. Let me briefly explain this, because I didn't last many episodes. I talk about it a lot, but your nervous system is like a it's like a 3 boxes stacked on top of each other, and in the middle is your window tolerance. How much can I tolerate before I move out of the window tolerance and into a stressed out state or into like a freeze state. So you move out. You might go up. I'm more of a person that goes up sympathetic side. That's not bad. It's not wrong, just is so. I'm more prone to like anxiety, tense, defensive things like that always ruminating on thoughts. So that's your your sympathetic side. If you get stuck there for a long time you might enter into like the free side of that where you're like. I'm so overwhelmed with with like everything going in my life that I'm like, frozen, but not frozen like I'm shutting down, frozen like, I know internally, my body's like, Go go. But I actually just can't move versus if you're a person who's more likely to go down underneath the window of tolerance. That's the parasympathetic side and parasympathetic freeze is the same kind of feelings of the sympathetic freeze in the very, very, very, very top, except your body's doing different things inside. Parasympathetic freeze is actually like shutdown dissociation, disconnection, depression, so same like kind of external actions. But internally different things are going on. But what's weird about this is the parasympathetic side between the window of tolerance. And between that freeze state is this little zone that we call like the social engagement, or like scientifically, the ventral vagal. But we don't need to know that right now. What you need to know is like that little zone. There is what helps people to co-regulate. When you're in that zone. You get a lot of oxytocin when you're in that Free State, whether you're up high Free State or down low Free State, and you activate something in that, like healthy, parasympathetic side. I keep saying healthy, but I gotta find a better word for that. It means that you are socially connecting with people you're co-regulating. You're getting oxytocin, and it's either pulling you out of a depressive state, or it's pulling you out of an anxious state more or less is what it is.

So here's the problem we've got. Hormone roller coasters. The nervous system is confused. So when your stress hormones are high and your oxytocin is low. Your nervous system has a really hard time regulating. It's like your body is trying to break like your body's trying to tell you like, stop, break, slow down rest, but your other foot is pushing the gas at the same time, which leads to some of you're going to feel really attacked by this, but don't feel attacked. Just let it be information to guide you. Mood swings, extreme fatigue, brain fog, trouble, sleeping, feeling on edge or feeling like you are completely shut down. Those are all signs of like, your body's like, I'm not okay. I need to do something or feel something or get somewhere. I need to get out of my window of tolerance. You're not broken. Your body is just responding to a chemical traffic jam.

So what can you do about it? Okay, I'm going to tell you a couple of things that are real life ways for you to kind of help your hormones help you, and you don't need a whole entire degree in endocrinology to know this. Let me give you a couple examples really quickly. If you you can have your you can have your hormones tested. You can see where your cortisol, your adrenaline things they are, but you also can kind of just feel it internally. If you feel like you might have high cortisol or high adrenaline, or both.Getting into nature. Getting outside into nature, is going to neutralize that. It's going to help you come out of that state. Breathing slowly, especially like longer out breath than in breath. Of course, things like meditation and mindfulness are going to do that. But there are also some things that you take out of your life that are adding to the cortisol and adrenaline the doom scrolling. Some of the most of the TV shows, because your body is like in a go, go, go, go, go state when you're scrolling. It's like dopamine hit scroll. Do see stimulation, and it can't slow down. It can't even access the oxytocin or not much of it and trying to create like micro moments, breaks tiny moments of just quiet or rest or peace, like even in your car like, can you get in your car? And before you take off to go somewhere, just sit there for 5 seconds. Just literally sit there for 5 seconds and close your eyes like every time I touch the steering wheel. Can I do something for me, a woman of faith. What I have tried to train myself to do is every time I touch my steering wheel when I'm trying to get to my car a little sooner, so I'm not rushing out the door and late for whatever it is, I'm going to get out there sooner, faster. Leave earlier. As soon as I touch my steering wheel, close my eyes and pray, and for me that's that's my tiny moment of quiet, and that's my little moment of meditation, and as much as I drive gives me a lot of opportunities throughout the day to have a quiet moment on the flip side. What if you would like to simultaneously, or you would rather boost oxytocin a lot of things we talked about earlier. Cuddle a pet, laugh, laugh with someone, look someone in the eye and that is like calming and peaceful and safe. Even if that is digital, seeing their face can still help you hearing their voice can still help you. Telling someone that you appreciate them. Gratitude, expression for someone expressing gratitude, dancing, moving your body, just doing things that like feel warm and fuzzy and connected, is probably gonna likely release more oxytocin best. If with people like co-regulation. That's your fastest way there. Okay, so those are your hormones, and how they impact your nervous system in a nutshell. They probably feel invisible, like again. You. You can kind of like sense where your hormones might be, but unless you have testing done. It might be a little bit hard to tell exactly where they are, but their impact in your like sensing and feeling of it impacts your mood impacts your energy, impacts your nervous system and all of those things. If in the negative side too long can impact the way your body functions, like disease, inflammation, all kinds of things, productivity, clarity, problem solving. They don't have to run the show. You can shift the script with small, little doable, integrated practices for your body, just like the ones I shared for oxytocin, or reducing your cortisol and your adrenaline, or you can go back and listen to like the last 10 episodes where I gave you zillions of practices to try that are like micro practices that you can do really quick, easy, cheap, fast. But these practices. Tell your body I'm safe. I'm supported. I can relax, and that's what we want. That's what we're after.

So to wrap up the show I'm going to share with you our try it at home, Tip, which I'm not because I just gave you a whole bunch in this episode and last episode and last episode. So choose any of the ones that either get you lower cortisol, adrenaline or higher oxytocin. And if you're looking for more support in any of these areas. Nervous system, stress trauma invested supports, brain-based supports, nervous, system-based supports. Dr. Jessica Doring and I created an organization called 5 Ives, FIVE. IVES. And that's the name of our website, 5 Ives. We come in and we work at the organization at all levels, usually organizations like high secondary trauma, high burnout, police medical education, nonprofits. And we work at all levels of the organization. And we work on nervous system regulation and emotional regulation and self regulation. And we work on integrating a lot of these concepts and practices into individuals, people that are serving people, people that are superiors to those serving people above the superiors. We work at all levels of the organization to regulate individuals, but to also help the collective whole of the organization feel more regulated. And when that happens, people like coming to their jobs, people like staying at their jobs, even if they're not paid as much, they still like to stay their jobs because the collective community of the organization feels calm and peaceful and happy and regulated. The culture of the organization is positive and good. That's what we're after. If you want to learn more about anything that we do, we have lots of types of programming. Go to 5 ives.com FIVE, IVES. You can learn about services on there, you can contact us. We can have a phone call with you and explain what we do, and see if we're a good fit for you. If not, we're going to give you some resources, and until next episode I am Lauren Spigelmyer, and thank you for joining me.”

Calming & Coping, Emotional RegulationLauren SpigelmyerComment