We Need Love to Survive
Love is crucial for our survival.
Feeling a lack of Love can actually change our physical structure and make us at risk of diseases.
A heart disease called Takotsubo is a condition in which the muscle of the heart actually changes its structure and is unable to function properly because of past stressful events, like grieving, loosing a loved one, a breakup, a broken heart or other stressful episodes[i]. 85% of the people who went through Takotsubo had a stressful event in their lives before the symptoms (which feel like a heart attack) started. The symptoms would usually disappear and within a few weeks they would recuperate completely.
It is more common than you think, and 1-3% of all cases of heart attacks are attributed to Takotsubo!
90% of people suffering from Takotsubo are women.
It is interesting to see again and again that women have a stronger psychosomatic relationship between their body and mind. Psychosomatic diseases – meaning, diseases that simultaneously have a physical and emotional background – is much more prevalent in women than they are in men[ii],[iii].
Autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system attacks the body instead of protecting it, is much more common in women then they are in men: some reports estimate that up to 75% of the cases are women[iv].
This leads to a conclusion that women need not only medical but also emotional support as part of their daily health care and disease prevention.
Many researches have shown that love and touch are important for our physical growth and well-being[v]. Feeling lonely and isolated is also a major risk factor for early death[vi].
We are a social species. It is OK to admit that you are dependable on others.
Love, be Loved, touch, hug.
Dare to open your heart to Everything.
Remind yourself of people's beauty by looking deep into their eyes.
Feel compassion and see the sweetness of strangers passing you by.
Love is crucial for your health, and besides drinking water and not smoking, it is the ultimate preventative medicine.
References:
[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takotsubo_cardiomyopathy
[ii] Hange D, Mehlig K, Lissner L, Guo X, Bengtsson C, Skoog I, Björkelund C. Perceived mental stress in women associated with psychosomatic symptoms, but not mortality: observations from the Population Study of Women in Gothenburg, Sweden. Int J Gen Med. 2013(6):307–315.
[iii] Sweeting H, West PB, Der GJ. Explanations for female excess psychosomatic symptoms in adolescence: evidence from a school-based cohort in the West of Scotland. BMC Public Health. 2007; 7: 298.
[iv] https://www.aarda.org/news-information/statistics/
[v] C Liu, J Liu, X Lin. Effects of touch on growth and mentality development in normal infants. - Zhonghua yi xue za zhi 2011 https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/11930611
[vi] Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, Mark Baker, Tyler Harris, David Stephenson. Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality A Meta-Analytic Review. Perspectives on Psychological Science 2015 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1745691614568352