Welcome to month’s post on Oxytocin – the love and connection hormone. It was World Mental Health Day last month and I thought it would be a good time to continue to talk about this subject and about a hormone inside our body called oxytocin. Oxytocin is a very powerful hormone that also acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. It comes with the nickname “the bonding and connection hormone” or even “the love hormone” because of its effect on us. How can you increase the release of this hormone inside your body? There are three ways you can boost oxytocin: Spending time with animals Studies have shown that spending time with animals, specifically, dogs, releases oxytocin in the body, and makes both you and the dog feel good (as you can see from the picture above of myself and my dog). Maybe that’s why so many welcome pets into their homes and why so many therapy centres use animals to help treat and rehabilitate people. Give people hugs Studies found that this also works …

This month I want to talk to you about simplicity. I think one way that we can get more time, more freedom, more headspace, therefore more simplicity in our lives, is to have a bit of discipline around mobile phones. I’ve recently read a great book called ‘How to Break Up With Your Phone’ by Catherine Price, a journalist based out in the States who I interviewed for my podcast series several months ago – it’s a brilliant book which I’d recommend. It is literally dog-eared from the notes I’ve taken from it for my interview, but also our rescue dog Kami got her teeth into it – so we’ve both read it, both enjoyed it, and both got through it. I was talking recently to a client of mine who said that he lost his phone last week and therefore wasn’t going to have a mobile phone for at least another week. He was describing the extra freedom he felt he had – after a bit of anxiety, a separation anxiety from the phone …