Do you believe in love intimacy devotion. What if I told you that it is all down to your hormones. I'm just an rollout and today on Business Daily we look at oxytocin Sometimes the love hormone this drug also has some surprising pharmaceutical applications be it in childbirth. Or dairy farming but could it also be a useful tool for your boss to manage workplace relations big increases our sense of empathy so now if you had your oxytocin increased because I care about you so much Justin. We would actually connect better that's the hormone oxytocin business day. You will no doubt be wondering what that sound you just heard was that that was the sound of a breast pump Now why would we have a breast pump in a program about hormones to answer that question as always we have Professor Marilyn Druce of parts of the London School of Medicine and Dentistry and you are an expert on hormones I know this is a subject you're uncomfortable about because oxytocin is the Cuttle hormone isn't it well so they say if you believe the merchandise there is no question that oxytocin is a hormone and that it's an important one it's produced by your most important hormone regulator gland and it has key functions in terms of stimulation and perpetuation of labor so when you're having a baby. You need oxytocin to get the uterus contract thing and indeed it's what you give women who are in labor when Labor isn't progress and you give them synthetic oxytocin it's also part of the mechanism by which there's breast milk letdown in breastfeeding of to you've had a baby so the breast pump because it's associated with mothers bonding with babies and that bonding you're looking for a full of out of that kind of bonding is thought to be due to the fact that oxytocin is supposed to make you feel warm and cuddly towards people Ok so I'm not discounting it as a story and certainly the story is there journalistically if I only show you here with my laptop open and I'm going to show you just a popular shopping website into which all I've done is type in oxytocin joviality sex appeal for men and exactly those modes exploiting the cultural instinct I love Marg we've got a love necklace from a fantastic That's actually the shape of absolute chaos in a molecule as if somehow the shape of the molecules itself going to be a turn on exactly crucially in here as well as the kind of celebration of the molecule we've got drugs or things purporting to be drugs that are supposed to affect for example whether or not somebody might be attracted to me so I might put on an after shave containing oxytocin and I hope that that couple effect would rebound on me or you certainly might even on this website by a nasal spray that purports to do something for you romantically now you've injected more than a note of skepticism into this you know clearly don't believe that spraying some oxytocin enjoin nose is going to make you feel more affectionate towards people or indeed spraying it into potential partners for peace is going to make them feel any more affectionate towards you well I think the science is interesting but I think we have to be cautious about it so hormones don't work or they work in concert and they're all doing lots of different things all the time and trying to pick what any one whom doesn't is quite tricky so I'll give you some examples one is to look at associations. Oxytocin levels might be higher in a new mother or higher in someone who's cuddling the baby but you can't really say anything about causation and the oxytocin measurement has some if he is in the scientific literature some of the tests for it cross react with lots of other hormones so the next thing you might do is administer oxytocin and see what happens to a person's behavior when you do it but 1st late you might give it them to sniff but not measure whether that's course an appreciable level in their bloodstream and also individual behavior is quite variable and I can see scientifically as a real challenge being a child. Your teen is a very alluring Holderness No I mean if you could solve the kind of cultural home and find ways to deliver it that would be a nice thing for everybody we don't go around feeling warm and happy and affectionate we can end war can we with our you know appropriately delivered oxytocin into the battlefield would die and you know any conflict Well let me give you some examples of what has been demonstrated so for example people who are given oxytocin may show behaviors that are more trusting to people who they perceive to be like them now it's very easy to run away with the journalist story about that all that means oxytocin is the thing that makes me trust my family support my football team but equally the same people also show more envy and also shuddering Freud it's not all lovey don't be I'm positive so they will want to talk and it's so then you start to have to apply explanations to it like well what that means is that you cling more to the people who are like you and your less positive about the people who are not like you Ok So hold on I was saying you could if spry a battlefield with oxytocin it would end the battle in fact the opposite of what I was saying in fact it's a perfect drug to give to soldiers who don't feel you know part of Band of Brothers and then ready to fight the opponent Well certainly there's something interesting in the. About trust and empathy and friendship but I don't think it's as straightforward as the behavioral reductionists would like to believe a skeptical Marilyn Druce of St Bartholomew's Hospital in London that well one such social science research I whose faced a good deal of skepticism is poor Zach he is a self-styled neuro economist at Claremont Graduate University in the us and at a ted talk back in 2011 he wound up quite a few of his critics by touting his nickname in the. I want to know if there was a moral molecule after 10 years of experiments I found this little syringe contains the more molecule. It's called oxytocin we showed that oxytocin infusion increases generosity in unilateral monetary transfers by 80 percent and it's so easy to cost people's brains to release oxytocin and my favorite way to do it is in fact the easiest Let me show it to you they're going to help. There you go. Here's your prescription from Dr Love 800 said day. A house a day you'll be happier and the world will be a better price of course if you don't like to touch people I can always shove this up your nose I got thank this import I watched a ted talk and they produce a Lawrence actually emailed me telling me to find someone to hog the 4 I interviewed you but this sounds a little bit sad I have to admit it's late at night in India where I am my wife so I haven't actually hugged anyone Now how is that going to with fact how the interview goes from here it's going to be all downhill unfortunately it's just going to be awful so shown is that when the brain makes oxytocin has a couple of facts why is it reduces physiologic stress or just carry more comfortable more relaxed and it increases our sense of empathy so now if you had your oxytocin increased because I care about you so much Justin we would actually connect better you'd be better able to anticipate what I'm feeling a nut I guessing is why you talk a lot about the role of oxytocin and in workplace relationships between colleagues so I spent 8 years measuring brain activity while people worked to understand how to create a culture of trust and showed that. Cultures are much more productive people have more energy they get sick less Ok And how do we do this is it through hugging each other no not even close it's really deciding a culture in which colleagues at work have positive interactions which stimulate the brain to make oxytocin So we actually identified 8 building blocks somehow magically those have the acronym oxytocin Here's some examples once you start meetings with gratitude Hey last week just do this amazing thing to help my project you can start talking about what you don't know who can help us with this project so really being open and vulnerable is a way to reduce oxytocin release and help people connect to you isn't just about to tell you is it because those rules of ways generally aren't they to make people feel. He'll welcome and safe and trusting yes will be a concrete example one of the 8 factors that help build trust is recognizing high performers Ok that's not new but here's what the nurse on it says if I reckon I see individuals in particular ways I get a much bigger impact on the brain of behavior in particular a recognition that goal focused close sometimes when the goal is met it comes from peers that's unexpected that's public all those things make a bigger impact on the way the brain perceives this social reward so it's really using that our science to get the biggest impact but there's been quite a bit of criticism of the research underlying these claims about that and trust you were one of a group of authors who wrote a seminal paper on the subject but other is such as have had trouble replicating away couldn't they when you're talking about the oxytocin fusions has sure to use a when you use a spray for example to deliver the oxytocin That's exactly right so that's a big sledgehammer that is not the way your brain works the analogy would be to studying another chemical like dopamine which is social with reward and risk taking behavior Well I can get you a 1000000 times more don't mean your brain by giving you cocaine that doesn't tell you how the brain's own don't mean system works because it's a sledgehammer but what we're doing is looking at the brain's own production of oxytocin So we found it really promotes pro-social behaviors increases teamwork and that results in a broad located now and in the 15 years since we started doing this work so I mean the studies show the oxytocin can build trust within groups but it could also exaggerate rivalry between groups I mean isn't there a danger that you might find that you'll building quite competitive teams within a workplace So 1st of all those scientific filings only apply more I'm slush I mean with oxytocin then priming you to behave comparatively so we find those phrasal exactly right we do not find that effect when people's own oxytocin is released and that's caused by positive social interactions we certainly do want competition at work but we want out. Competition and that competition drives us to perform a high level so what we don't want to have is in group competition within a company places like World Com Enron have done that and then the system melts down I have to say I'm quite reassured that it doesn't all involve hugging because as a Brit hugging isn't something we're naturally very good at I mean isn't there a shortcut to all of this and that's using these sprays that are readily available on the Internet and deliver a big dose of oxytocin So I say hugs not drugs 1st of all illegal to be drugging people I was told my internet is not real oxytocin because it's a prescription drug and why don't we take but Nature's given us and understand their system so we can tweak it and make it more effective so it certainly don't want to be tracking people at work that was neuro economist Paul Zak And you're listening to a business daily special all about the hormone oxytocin Well pulls advice to stay off the drugs would be well received by a group of people who may surprise you Indian dairy farmers oxytocin is widely used in India to increase the milk flow in cattle it is a controversial and illegal practice that causes the cows to experience labor pains it can also contaminate the milk which some fear may cause premature puberty in girls and abnormal breast growth in boys but that is not all the anecdotal evidence that some farmers have been dabbling in the drug themselves for recreational purposes I went to investigate. What would come out about 30 kilometers outside of done it and just walking through some fields now. Dusty feel to its height of summer now 40 degrees centigrade today so very hot. And we've driven off the road and we've come to a. Small Farm guy who earns about 15 Buffalo. Let's say now you speak English but these are Buffalo Yeah and how much milk do they produce. 25. Minutes at a good business. Only $15000.00 if you must not bad is it $200.00 a month which in India is quite a decent profit so we're interested in the use of this thing called oxytocin to help the cow is deliver more milk Have you heard of that yeah yeah. So you give the injection. And you. Are going to index on to did you use it before yeah and what difference did it make. Half a liter to one liter difference and how much did it cost to buy the drug. And. So you pay off in $1.00 day the cost of the drug so it is very economical for farmers just explain the ban because I thought it was banned years ago like in the 1960 s. . So you could buy it as like a product in the general store. So it was kind of unofficial sales legal illegal sale in. What he says is the government's been putting pressure on these general stores that have been selling it legally they've been raids people have been punished you can be in prison for up to 5 years for selling it or using it on your animals. 98 and he was 20 years older than me and one pint he was taking out of the cupboards and mind that at a psychiatric conference just outside Delhi I caught up with Dr b I. Chive and he worked with drug addicts at a medical college in the Punjabi city of Chandler Gar and he was the 1st to discover farmers injecting themselves with oxytocin he said he had had it and there was. And he was. But he said it was something different I've read your original article for you know 1980 it's interesting is the experiences he had did not sound at all pleasant you developed a very bad temper did me attack he beat up some of his friends. And it made me think why would anybody take this drug after that we did get similar cases at the other places and we were finding it very strange but lately there is some evidence that yes this oxytocin reduces your level off and Jackie loses your stance. Did you ever try the drug you know. Because we've heard stories some farmers have tried the drug. What you have tried and I don't know if you thought of the your nephew tried it and what was it like banging was just feeling kind of dizzy in this mailing and some of the other perhaps oh my God he's so he said he injected it into a vein like you might in general this most heroin recently and what do you think of that is not a good idea in the brain but I chair Yeah you obviously doesn't think much of it until he took it for 7 years and you were never tempted you know. The joy of dairy farming in India and I'm afraid that that brings us to the end of today's program except for this oh. Yes Well if you want to know what that was all about you have to download the business daily podcast search online for b.b.c. Business Daily and then just follow the instructions next week I will be back with another hold my own and this one. Will really get your heart right Steve.