We’ve all heard the phrase, “Laughter is the best medicine.” This wisdom actually comes from the Bible. Proverbs 17:22 says, “A joyful heart is good medicine.”  But did you know that love may be even better? In this Valentine’s Day season, this may be the most important message of all!

Makai Allbert, writing in The Epoch Times, tells us science continues to develop an increasingly nuanced and comprehensive understanding of love and its effects on the body.

In a seminal experiment published in JAMA Psychiatry, researchers found that couples with warm and affectionate interactions healed 40 percent faster from minor blister wounds than those who argued or demonstrated hostility.

The study suggests that positive emotional states generated by loving relationships activate the parasympathetic nervous system, often called the “rest and digest” system, which can reduce inflammation and accelerate cellular repair. By contrast, hostile relationships inhibited healing by 60 percent, likely because of elevated stress hormones such as cortisol.

Dr. Cynthia Thaik, a Harvard-trained cardiologist and medical director of Holistic Healing Heart Center, told The Epoch Times that love heals at a biochemical level by releasing oxytocin, a neuropeptide often called the “feel-good” or “love” hormone. According to Thaik, this hormone reduces stress and improves immune function.

Love naturally lessens feelings of pain. A Stanford University study exposed a group of participants to moderate levels of thermal pain while showing them photos of their romantic partners. This group reported significantly lower pain than those who were either shown a photo of an acquaintance or were given a task as a distraction—such as “think of as many sports as possible that do not use a ball.”

The heart is universally recognized as a symbol of love, and fittingly, love significantly affects the heart itself. A study that asked 10,000 men the question “Does your wife show you her love?” found that those who answered “yes” had a 50 percent lower rate of angina pectoris, or chest pains. This reduction was present even in men with high-risk factors such as high cholesterol and diabetes.

“Love heals the heart and inspires peace, harmony, and calmness,” said Thaik, who approaches heart health holistically. “In order to maintain a balanced and healthy physical heart, we must take care to feed the emotional heart.”

Indeed, love directly affects how your heart works. A study by Brooks Gump, endowed professor of public health at the Falk College at Syracuse University, showed that when people were around their spouses or partners, their blood pressure decreased. Interestingly, even if the relationship was not a particularly happy one, blood pressure still dropped.

Today, we have learned of the many positive effects of love on our health. Next post we will learn what happens in the absence of love.

When I went to college and later medical school, I learned to drink coffee. I didn’t especially like it at first, but it did seem to give me an energy boost that got me through the long hours of study necessary in my profession. I started out using milk and sugar, but eventually graduated to just black coffee, the stronger the better. I certainly felt like I needed that caffeine boost to get me through the long days and nights of medical training.

But now there is some evidence that caffeine may actually drain us of energy! Flora Zhao and Zena le Roux, writing in The Epoch Times, report on new information in the medical literature about caffeine. They say, “Every morning, most Americans reach for that steaming cup of coffee, believing it is their lifeline to alertness and productivity. However, the daily caffeine fix is more of a clever illusion than a genuine energy booster. When you drink coffee, you are actually borrowing energy from your body’s future reserves.”

“Caffeine is generally a brain stimulant,” said Edward Giovannucci, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In its pure form, this purine alkaloid appears as a bitter, white powder. Besides coffee beans, caffeine is found in more than 60 plants around the world, including tea leaves, guarana berries, and cacao beans. Caffeine counteracts a molecule in the body called adenosine, which makes us sleepy, Giovannucci told The Epoch Times.

Adenosine levels in the brain are low when we wake up but gradually accumulate throughout the day. As adenosine increasingly binds to its receptors, it signals the brain that rest is needed, causing us to feel drowsy. During sleep, adenosine is cleared, and this cycle repeats. Insufficient sleep leads to a buildup of adenosine and increased receptor sensitivity, which explains the grogginess and sluggishness often experienced after a restless night.

Caffeine has a structure similar to adenosine, allowing it to block adenosine from binding to its receptors and take its place. This prevents the brain from receiving drowsiness signals, effectively muting the tiredness noise.

Adenosine not only signals drowsiness, but also suppresses brain cell activity. When caffeine blocks adenosine, it indirectly stimulates the central nervous system. It triggers the release of various biochemicals—including dopamine, glutamate, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol—resulting in enhanced alertness, mood, and cognitive function.

A 2020 meta-analysis involving multiple studies indicated that caffeine intake can somewhat enhance cognitive, work, and driving performance in sleep-deprived individuals. The feeling of an energy boost from drinking coffee is real, Cindy Chan Phillips, a registered dietitian, told The Epoch Times.

Borrowed Energy

The energy boost caffeine provides is fundamentally the result of reduced fatigue signals rather than a direct increase in energy levels, Mary Curristin, a nutritionist and health coach at ART Health Solutions, told The Epoch Times. Food provides energy, but caffeine does not. A cup of black coffee contains fewer than five calories, and the energy it provides is essentially borrowed from the body. 

Caffeine keeps you alert by blocking adenosine, but “it is temporary,“ said Melissa Ann Prest, a registered dietitian with a doctorate in clinical nutrition from Rutgers University. Rather than eliminating the adenosine that causes fatigue, caffeine merely masks its presence in the body for a short time. Once the effects of caffeine wear off, the accumulated adenosine floods the body with drowsiness signals, a phenomenon often referred to as ”caffeine crash.”

“Caffeine does not ‘give’ you energy; it borrows from your future energy reserves and thus is a drain on the body,” Dr. Rachel Carlton Abrams, a family practice physician who is also board-certified in holistic medicine, wrote in her book “BodyWise.” Overreliance on caffeine is “not sustainable” without proper nutrition, sufficient rest, and general good health, Curristin said.

In summary, caffeine does make it possible for you to stay awake and perform tasks as needed longer than you might without it. But your body pays the price for this “’borrowed energy” leading to the “caffeine crash” we have all experienced.

And one more important point. Caffeine usage leads to dehydration which can cause kidney stones! As one who has experienced the agony of kidney stones, I don’t recommend caffeine!

Are people complaining because you’re more irritable lately? Do you seem to get into arguments more often now? You may be using social media too much.

George Citroner, writing in The Epoch Times, tells us people who spend most of their day on social media show significantly higher levels of irritability than nonusers, scoring more than three points higher on a standard irritability test, according to a major new study of more than 42,000 adults.

A new study published in JAMA Network Open on Jan. 8 examined the relationship between social media use and irritability, moving beyond previous research that focused primarily on depression and anxiety. Conducted between November 2023 and January 2024, the study surveyed more than 42,500 U.S. adults from 50 states and the District of Columbia. The research found that about 80 percent of respondents engaged with at least one social media platform daily. Using the Brief Irritability Test, researchers found that people who used social media multiple times daily scored 1.43 points higher than nonusers.

Those who reported using social media “most of the day” showed an even more dramatic increase, scoring 3.37 points higher than nonusers. This pattern suggests a dose-response relationship: The more frequently people used social media, the higher their irritability scores climbed, according to the authors.

Social media often frequently shows a heavily filtered and highly curated version of reality. Constantly seeing others portray happy lives, vacations, relationships, and ideal bodies can lead to feelings of inadequacy, envy, and frustration with one’s own life. This constant comparison can fuel feelings of resentment and irritability.

Additionally, screen entertainment through social media can be overly stimulating, which may increase baseline stress, leading to feelings of anxiety and irritation. Also, the blue light emitted from electronic devices can interfere with sleep patterns. Lack of sleep can significantly affect mood and increase irritability.

If you’re a frequent user of TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram, you may be particularly vulnerable. The effect was particularly pronounced on specific platforms. For instance, TikTok users who engaged with the platform most of the day showed a 1.69-point increase in irritability scores, while frequent Facebook users showed a 1.4-point increase.

The researchers also examined whether political engagement on social media might explain the increased irritability. While more frequent political discussions on social media platforms were linked to greater irritability, the findings still suggest that social media usage, in general, remained a significant factor in rising irritability scores, even after controlling for political engagement.

Irritability deserves focused attention as a distinct mental health concern, separate from its known associations with depression and anxiety, the study authors noted. However, they acknowledged several important limitations in their research, including an inability to assess causation and a reliance on self-reported data, which may be subject to recall bias on the part of participants. “The association between social media and mood is likely to be complex and potentially bidirectional,” the study authors wrote.

These study results are not surprising, given what we already know. Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist at New York University’ Stern School of Business has referred to the present generation gap of Generation Z as a “national crisis.” He is referring to the impact of social media and smart phones on our youth. For more on this subject, read my post Social Media Dangerous to Our Youth.