The effects of love on the human body are profound and science is only beginning to understand to what extent the positive and negative impact the emotion of love has on the physical self.

The effects of love on the human body are profound and science is only beginning to understand to what extent the positive and negative impact the emotion of love has on the physical self. Additionally, longevity science has hit its stride in recent years, and age-related studies repeatedly point back to holistic human wellness, and the complex link longevity has on the health of the mind as well as the body. Science isn’t looking for a way to bottle love just yet, but the better we understand the concrete neurobiology of love and its possible secondary implications on our health, the greater the understanding of love’s role in our mental and physical health will be.

So, the question begs, can love itself help us to live a longer, healthier life?

There is no denying that love is a powerful emotion and when we experience it many describe the feeling equal to being alive — which is a pretty big feeling. Admittedly, love can have some undesirable consequences occasionally, however, love in its purest form, the emotion itself, is only positive. In other words, there is no downside to love as an authentic emotion, and only the associated circumstances that surround the physical person experiencing that love can intrude in any negative way.

Most of us have experienced the positive emotions of love, but there a number of very different feelings we can feel inside of that larger emotion, and still be experiencing authentic love. Whether it’s with the unconditional adoration we feel for our children or the romantic love we have for our partner, love in any form can run the gamut of emotion from exhilaration to joy, happiness to laughter, and ultimately overtime, moving to a state of calm or even peacefulness.

When we are feeling love in any form, a complex chain of chemical reactions take place in our body. One of the hormones of love and pleasure, dopamine, is triggered and acts as a “messenger substance” or neurotransmitter that conveys signals between neurons that controls mental and emotional responses. Dopamine is a hormone involved in reward, motivation, memory, attention and even regulating body movements functions, and has been tagged in the media as the “happiness hormone.” A dopamine hit is pleasurable, so the body wants to repeat it again and again, which is why for instance, when we eat sugar, dopamine is triggered that it becomes difficult to break the cycle of eating sugary foods because the pleasure response is so strong.

If a “pleasure” hormone is released the nervous system will transmits it throughout the body. An increase of dopamine, oxytocin and other positive feeling hormones causes a decrease in cortisol levels, that can help boost our immune system because cortisol (which is most well-known for being a stress-inducing hormone) actually helps maintain your immune system when released in small doses.

NAD+ Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide

What happiness looks like at the cellular level.

Now that we understand emotional love can have a positive effect on all the systems of our body, we are free to wonder if love is actually strong enough to help us to live a longer life or does it need more help?

Additionally, cellular health, which relies on the presence of SIRT1 and NAD+ (Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide) in the cell, and is linked to the emotional effects of happiness hormones, is proving to be intimately linked to wellness and ultimately to our physical and mental health. Authors Abel and Chatterjee, researchers at the Department of Biology, in the University of Pennsylvania, published findings on the importance of Sirtuins in ‘genetic happiness’, in Biological Psychiatry, the Journal of Psychiatric Neuroscience and Therapeutics, entitled, To Stay Happy, Keep Your SIRT1 Active.

SIRT1 regulates cell processes, including the aging and death of cells and their resistance to stress. These proteins are also found to reduce depression in chronically stressed animals. But SIRT1 is only half the story. NAD+, identified by Harvard scientists is so significant to aging that by the time we reach our fiftieth year, we are roughly working on half our original stores. Full supplies of NAD+ are therefore consistent with youth and wellness and keeping these vital stores full has become an obsession with longevity scientists in search of the fountain of youth.

Love is a strong wellness aid for healthy aging

It is true: Positive emotions help to extend our lives but they need help.

A combination of many factors throughout our lives determine whether we advance into old age or not; genetics, heredity, and circumstances pose extenuating conditions - and often luck plays a role.

As established, love as an emotion has a positive effect on the body’s physical, mental and emotional well-being through the transmission of hormones, but without the full balance of health, reduced stress and mindfulness, unlike the storybooks have promised, love alone may not be enough.

Love is strong, yes, but it cannot stand alone as a long-life elixir — it needs our help and the help of every function in the body to work optimally.

Take heart, love is however a powerful emotion that will not only evoke the best of ourselves out into the world, but can invoke the best of life into ourselves.