My Life as a Band Wife

Relationships are a funny thing. Psychologists tell us that the key to a healthy and long-lasting relationship is communication, openness, separate hobbies and keeping the sex life hoppin’. But according to recent research from Bar-Ilan University, the real key to every-lasting love is oxytocin.

[photo by Jeremy Daccarett]

According to Emma Gray’s piece in the Huffington Post, the university study found that Oxytocin, the hormone that has been linked to sexual reproduction, orgasm, maternal bonging and anxiety, is potentially more important to relationships than was previously thought. 60 couples in their 20s who had gotten together within a three-month time span were interviewed both individually and as a couple about the new relationship. They had samples of their blood drawn and at the starting point, those couples had double the oxytocin in their system than the 43 singles that had been tested. Gray wrote that the couples had been tested over six months (the ones that stayed together, anyway) and the researchers found that the oxytocin levels had remained relatively the same.

Of course, Glamour points out that these findings are relative to how different people experience love, especially considering the hormone has been tied to both long-term relationships and unemotional sexual encounters and cheating.

OK, so, you’ve found the person that keeps your oxytocin levels up, but you’re not ready to make the kid commitment quite yet. Women are constantly struggling with birth control as many find that the added hormones cause, well, bitchiness, and the general feeling of being unwell. Dr. David A. Grimes, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, told New York Times reporter Jane E. Brody that the intrauterine device (IUD) is making a comeback in the US.

Although the IUD had previously only been recommended for women who were done having children because of the risk of infertility caused by infections related to the device, research has shown that these concerns were “groundless” with the current IUDs when they are properly inserted. The number of women using an IUD has more than tripled since 2002. I can honestly say that I recommend it to all of my female friends. It truly is a life changer.

But bogus birth control isn’t the only thing that can ruin your mood and health. As we all know, stress can be a serious hindrance to health and happiness. In today’s fast-paced, high tech world, we’re always on call and we never have time to disconnect. Real Simple provides these three ways to reduce tension and stress in 15 minutes. Remember, taking that time to unwind doesn’t just benefit you – it benefits all of your personal and professional relationships (and maybe even that oxytocin level, too).

In the late 1980s, while he was studying at the University of Glasgow, Stuart Murdoch became ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and was unable to work for seven years. Some reports indicate that he was housebound for eight years. Murdoch said that it was because of this isolation that he became a songwriter.

He said that over the course of a year, his life changed. He went from being an active human being in every way – he was a club DJ in addition to a student – and he found himself fantasizing about everyday life.

“Three years later, I’m sitting in a box bedroom in Ayr, unable to go out, and fantasizing about going down to the shops or being able to make a cup of coffee for somebody,” Murdoch said.

But anyone suffering from CFS and fibromyalgia knows that, sometimes, these simple activities are far out of reach.

“That was a big desert at the time, a kind of vacuum in my life,” he said. “From that, these songs started coming out, these melodies where I could express what I was feeling.

In 1995 he worked with a faith healer, whom he credits with his recovery. He said that she placed her hands above his body for an hour, and the recovery took several months.

 “I actually got sicker for a few months, and I feel that was when the demons were being cast out,” Murdoch told New York Times reporter Stephen Rodrick.

Of course, he is not fully recovered and is still susceptible to lingering colds that can last for weeks, but his energy levels have returned to nearly what they were preillness and he is able to exercise regularly. Being sick and spending a lot of time alone at home, Murdoch learned an incredibly precious lesson about life.

“The thing I learned when I was sick was to do things when they felt right,” Murdoch told the Times. “Not hold on to things for a future time that may never come.”

Well, folks, we’re getting there.

On Feb. 7, a three-judge panel in the Federal District Court of the Northern District of California ruled that Proposition 8 is in violation of the constitutional right of gay men and lesbians in California.

Gee, you think?

From The New York Times:

But Tuesday’s 2-to-1 decision was much more narrowly framed than the sweeping ruling of Judge Walker, who asserted that barring same-sex couples from marrying was a violation of the equal protection and due process clauses of the Constitution.

The two judges on Tuesday stated explicitly that they were not deciding whether there was a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry, instead ruling that the disparate treatment of married couples and domestic partners since the passage of Proposition 8 violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

“Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently,” Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt wrote in the decision. “There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted.”

Read more …