Sub title: Endorphins

While many people vaguely aware that the blissful feelings one experiences after sex to be endorphin related, a few are aware that endorphins are naturally produced by a wide rage of activities like meditation, deep breathing, ribald laughter, eating spicy food, or receiving acupuncture treatments or chiropractic adjustments. Fewer still know that endorphins are actually good for health, and can play a role in helping drug and alcohol abusers overcome their addiction.

Endorphins are first discovered in 1975, this is one of several morphine-like substances (opioids) discovered within our brains as recently as thirty years ago. Endorphins are polypeptides containing 30 amino acids units. These are considered stress hormones like corticotrophin, cortisol, and catecholamines (adrenaline, noradrenaline), and are manufactured by the body to reduce stress and relieve pain. Usually produced during extreme stress. Although more research needs to be done, endorphins are believed to produce four key effects on the body mind: they enhance the immune system, they relieve pain, and they reduce stress, and postpone the aging process. They also activate human NK (Natural Killer) cells and boost the immune system against diseases and kill cancer cells.

In contrast to short-intensity workouts like sprinting or weightlifting, prolonged, continuous exercise like running, long-distance swimming, aerobics, cycling or cross-country skiing appears to contribute to an increased production and release of endorphins. This results in a sense of euphorbia that has been popularly labeled the “runner’s high”. It also may contribute to what some athletes call a” second wind”. Rather than feeling pain and exhaustion while running, endorphins may help us actually feel limber and energized towards the end of race.

The blissful feeling one often experiences after making love is due to the body’s production of endorphins, in fact .endorphin production can increase 200% from the beginning to the end of sexual activity. Physical contact, and not just sex alone, also helps produce endorphins, along with the hormone oxytocin, and help stabilize a relationship between a loving couples.

There is a connection between good sex and staying young, men and women who has sex four to five times a week look more than 10 years younger than the average person, who has sex twice a week. It believes that the pleasure due to endorphins derived from sex was a crucial factor in preserving youth. However indulging in promiscuous sex did not have the same benefits, and it was more likely to promote the aging process rather than reduce it.

Endorphin research has led to new, though conflicting findings in the field of mental illness. Throughout the years, evidence has existed that links an excess, deficiency, and even static levels of endorphin activity to depression. Further investigation may yield a new treatment for depression and should improve our understanding of the role of endorphins in normal and abnormal physiology. It has even been said that some patients in future could be treated with their own endorphins, extracted under local anesthetic from their cerebrospinal fluid during a routine checkup visit and held in reserve for moments of mental crisis .Endorphin levels in depression,in future years give a basis for better, more effective biochemical treatment to a psychological disease. Pharmaceutical company in Europe and the United states began searching for a synthesized relative of endorphins that could relieve pain, but not be addicting. However, producing a nonaddicting pain reliever is still under intense research.

Source: www.google.co.in