Mother’s Day has already come and gone this year, but according to new research, your stress levels may decrease if you keep in touch with your Mom.
Seth D. Pollack, PhD, led a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison who looked at the effect that contact with mothers can have on the stress levels of their daughters.
Previous studies using animal models showed that oxytocin levels increased when the animals had direct physical contact with their mothers. Oxytocin is the “feel good” chemical released in the brain that can counter the stress hormone cortisol.
In this current study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Pollack et al. found that verbal contact with moms can have similar beneficial effects on oxytocin levels.
Researchers took 61 girls between the ages of 7 and 12 and had them do public speaking or public math solving, situations which normally increase stress levels.
They then divided the girls into three groups. The first group had physical contact with their mothers for 15 minutes following the stressful event. The second group talked to their mothers over the telephone for 15 minutes.
But the third group had no contact with their mothers. Instead, they watched a 75-minute neutral film, which the other two groups also watched as soon as they were done interacting with their mothers.
Cortisol and oxytocin levels were tested on the girls, both before and after the stressful event.
Girls who had contact (either full or verbal) with their mothers, had drops in their cortisol levels starting immediately after the stress test and returning to normal levels within 30 minutes.
The girls who had no contact with their mothers experienced continual rises in their cortisol levels that lasted throughout the experience.
And, the girls who had contact with their mothers experienced elevated levels of oxytocin that lasted more than an hour after the stressful event. The girls with no maternal contact experienced no increase in oxytocin.
While this study focused on mothers and daughters and therefore can’t be generalized to all family relationships, attachment between all family members can’t be discarded, especially when dealing with stress and trauma.
Attachment is a powerful subject, and one that is frequently discussed in our programs on trauma treatment.
Please leave a comment below and tell us what you think of the “Mom intervention”.
I love nicabm brings up this study and more discussion about toxic relationship causing stress among mothers and daughters. It is more importantly so among adopted children and their caregivers.
It would depend whether you had a strong positive attachment with your mother or nit
There’s always two sides to a situation; sometimes three. Though the main premise is true, it depends on the mental and psychological state of mother and daughter. There are daughters who are more mature than their mothers and sometimes end up as advisers to the latter. This study is obviously based on a “normal” mother-daughter relationship.
I found this interesting. As a person who has suffered high cortisol levels (self diagnosed) I look over my relationship with my mother, and I suspect this is right on! However, when I ponder the relationship with my girls (15, 18, 20 yrs old) I would want more information on the relationships between the mothers and their daughters in this study. I would suspect this is very relative, also depending on the daughter’s developmental stage. I would think for some people you could substitute chocolate for mother and get a similar outcome. I love my girls dearly and have comitted a large part of my life to them, but there are many times it seems my presence raises their cortisol levels. I suspect this study had a starting agenda and tho perhaps unconsciously, only utilized the moments that served the agenda, to test.
Yes this is all good if the Mother wasn’t traumatized herself. Unfortunately there are Mothers in this world who don’t know understand how to nurture due to their own unique circumstances. Sometimes staying in touch with ones Mother is not healthy. Learning to love oneself, independent of anyone is key – healthy nourishing love of self and others. If this was better understood we would have quite a healthy world!
I read this after an increasingly rare but still wonderful weekend with my children and their significant others. They are all 35+ and although born in the USA, I raised mine in the Netherlands from when the youngest was born, as a single mother (no sympathy because I loved it). My two sons live in the States and my daughter still lives in Holland. Two of the kids are pregnant with their first child and that has given lots of joy, worry and anxiety because life is not perfect.
What hit home in this article is the huge emotional AND physical support we all give to eachother. That really started when I went through a horrible divorce 2 1/2 years ago and called on them for help. That was a first for me, but it gave all of us an opportunity to redifine our roles and become adults who share something very special and love eachother. We have to continue this redifining, because we keep changing and so do our needs.
I have worked as hard as I could, without knowing what it took, or even how to do it, so my kids could end up respecting eachother and hopefully being in touch. I never could have imagined the bond the have.
My mother is a not nice person, I have no contact with my brother and supervisual contact with my sister who can’t stand my daughter (so that is not good!!), so I realize that all the dope I used in school and other drugs might have made up for the lack of love and support that I received myself after the many traumas I had as a small child.
As far as using extacy, I would rather see marijuana used if it has the same results, because that worked for me for years and living in Holland it kept me out of the illegal circuit.
English is not my first language, so I definitely leave this as good enough in the assumption that whomever reads it will understand the meaning.
There has been a question about the citation for this study.
Pubmed lists it as the following:
Seltzer LJ, Ziegler TE, Pollak SD. Social vocalizations can release oxytocin in humans. Proc Biol Sci. 2010 May 12. [Epub ahead of print]
We were also able to download the article from the Proceedings of the Royal Society B using the following information:
Leslie J. Seltzer, Toni E. Ziegler, Seth D. Pollak. Proc. R. Soc. B. published online 12 May 2010 in advance of print journal.
doi: 10/1098/rspb.2010.0567
Whoever reads this, please forgive me. My PH.D. dissertation supervisor at the University of Missouri-Columbia put me through paces for two years while I was writing my dissertation to his specifications (he was eloquent and well-published, two qualities I respected highly and wanted to emulate). So, I keep correcting and amending my stuff. I’m not used to letting it lie as it’s expressed previously, as good enough.
I wanted to quickly share also that one can be too close to one’s mother and to not have individuated properly as is developmentally sound to do during the late teens, early 20’s. I, after my biological mother died and went for help since I was overwhelmed and for the first time in my life could not cry, went for psychiatric help 9 months after her funeral. Psychiatrists did more psychotherapy in the East of the US where I lived at the time. The psychiatrist/neurologist explained to me that I was too close to my mother. So, excesses in either direction could cause coping problems depending on the circumstances/situations.
Just in case anyone wonders what the rest of my background is: Mostly developmental perspectives throughout the life span at the University of Houston where I studied Psychology along with Grad. work in German and Pre-medical studies for a number of years, the psycho-dynamic and behavioral orientations were mixed with a few sprinkles of experimental and developmental Psychology (including MR and other developmentally delayed populations) for my MA in Clinical Psych. (45 credit hours in addition to approximately 15 catch-up hours at Post Grad level they required to enter their MA program), mostly cognitive-behavioral orientation for my Ph.D. Then, I tried to meld all those approaches into a fairly cohesive schema in order for me to do good all-around work in the field. Have incorporated somatic approaches, and others (EMDR, Clinical Hypnosis) to that experiential background in order to help people and for me to grow professionally (and often personally).
Thank you very much for sending me another “TICKLER” to read the article above. I’ve also read the comments people have shared – all types. So interesting and many-varied. I’ve never blogged before and had this terrible ominous opinion about it. I most probably garnered this opinion from news stories of how information got into the wrong hands, etc.
The study is quite interesting, and, as someone above said, must be put in its ‘cubby’ (my word for making sure I leave it in its rightful place as a study with faults, unanswered questions, limitations to generalization for sure, and all sorts of other ‘ills’. On the other hand, it’s elegant in its support for the reported positive biochemical effect on daughters in this case (maybe also on the mothers?). I refer to the results in feelings of well-being and the ability to stop escalating negative feelings when contact with mom is made, is available. This is similar to a child’s nervous system as it learns to self-soothe when it is soothed from the outside by getting its needs met by the caregiver. It learns to do this after birth when upset or it needs something. In this study it then becomes a ‘conditioned’ (relaxation) response by the daughter in response to the stimulus, mother. This is expressed in very behaviorist type language which I learned alongside psycho-dynamic interpretations also. It would be interesting to learn about father-daughter, mother-son and father-son relationships in a similar manner (similar paradigm). The principal investigator could pair oxytocin and cortisol levels measured at strategic moments (as was done with the original study) with other outcome instruments that would measure e.g. awareness of the strength, and degree of health of the bond between parent and child and the feelings of the participant. One could thus extrapolate or hypothesize oxytocin and cortisol levels in subjects in different situations.
Maybe a paper and pencil instrument could be designed for use outside of a study that could indicate where the issues lie that need to be addressed in order to help a person regulate his/her cortisol level to keep it within manageable boundaries. Then, would it not be great to be able to increase the oxytocin level of a client/patient by predictably meeting certain needs?
All sorts of possibilities. I for one was very attached to my biological mother who unfortunately died when she was only 47 years old. My stepmother is a jewel and very much beloved by me also. Unfortunately she is ill at the present time and I feel very sad at times right now. The attachment bond can be so strong between a caregiver and child (young adult, etc.) – in both negative and positive ways Gives us all something to treasure, work on, and be proud of when being a caregiver who cares.
I am a mother of 4 adult children. And have always been aware, that my being there for my children, when they are in need of support worked wonders. Oxytocin also called the hughormone is what does the trick.
Reading the above reactions it feels as if it is almost illegitimate to research what healthy bonding can do for our offspring. Why would it be necessary to include instances, where this bonding, this oxytocin does not and did not work. That would be a different research. For instance what does being extremely unwanted, surving an abortionattempt, being abused, never having felt safe enough to form any attachement (the no bottom syndrome, as it is called in the Netherlands) have as effect on forming oxytocin receptors, or on if they do normally form, in spite of circumstances, on their functioning.
Also in reaction to the comments above on having a depressed or abusive mother, as i lived through the above: i am experiencing, living truely does not end with death. She died last September. Leaving written instructions i was not to attend her deathbed, wake or funeral.
When receiving a letter by sollicitor, informing of the above, i was in ‘shock’. I was in extreme physical pain, hardly able to walk. Dealt with it using EMDR. But after a while it is as if i started sensing her presence. And all she says is “SORRY”. Her death freed me from being her caretaker, looking after her from the age of 4. It freed me, to more intensely than even before, purify all traumatic experiences.
I had to use a lot of supplements though, to help my physical body get through all of this. I feel she is in a different realm now. And all that happened in this earthly life is being explained to her. My responsibility is now only for my own completion of healing.
I am grateful for all the experience i had with her. It taught me so much. And i would not be the unique self i am, had my life be any different.
Would love to have the citation for this! I tried to track it down by author and topic but no luck. Does anyone have it….Ruth you listening?
I agree that touch might not be calming if the Mom touching wasn’t perceived as safe, however touch is a very powerful modulator of affect. Experiments with baby chicks who were injected with a drug to block brain opoids and then separated from their mothers would eventually calm down when held…this is even though the chick equivalent of oxytocin was not available. This info is in the book, Affective Neuroscience, 1998-J. Panksepp.
The key for me in this study was the sentence about the ‘continual rise in stress levels’. Made me remember how young I was when I somehow ‘knew’ I was not going to be celebrated, comforted, de-stressed by my mom…just the opposite and that I needed to celebrate, comfort, de-stress myself and build relationships with others who would give me what I needed.
Appreciated Yulia’s comments about continuing to work on the relationship. A couple of therapists I worked with briefly tried very hard to convince me that I had a ‘trauma bond’ with my mom and that my insistence on maintaining a respectful relationship with her was a big mistake. Fortunately, that wonderful voice deep inside told me to keep working and learning and forgiving….for my sake first and foremost…and I decided to listen. ‘Not absorbing her poison’ is an excellent phrase. As I learned, I grew and realized how powerful I was regardless of her heartache and confusion. And I let my heart love her. Forget the cruelty and abuse? No. Love anyway and heal myself? Absolutely! Thanks for this dialogue.
I’d like to see the study replicated with fathers and daughters and sons. My 3 grown sons have co-parented from the moment their children were born. My guess is that it is the strength and quality of the attachment rather than the shared gender that causes the positive impact.
Were the participants screened or assessed with regard to their level of attachment security?
In the case of secure attachments, these results would come as no surprise to most people, and certainly not to counselling professionals, I think. However, it is not always black and white. Where the relationship and attachment is ‘good enough’, no doubt the above applies.
I suspect there is a sliding scale of attachment quality which may have an impact on the extent to which contact between mother and child is positive or negative.
While there may always be some positive benefit, even in the case of mothers providing a very suboptimal level of nurturing, there may also be some negatives.
There is a (divorced) family close to me wherein the mother would probably be more likely than the father to initially calm their son as per the above, however, she is so enmeshed and fused with her son she has a very negative effect in many other ways.
So I hope people will be very careful in how this study is used. Like most studies, it is a small, close up snapshot in isolation, and shouldn’t be extrapolated from too widely.
Toni McLean
Psychotherapist
NSW, Australia
We are naturally assuming that a connection with a family member, particularly a mother is only valuable if she is capable of having a healthy, safe, supportive, nurturing relationship with her children. What if a relationship was toxic, codependent? Are we better off if we disconnect and discard the relationship? In my own practice I was surprised to discover that those who cut themselves off entirely from relationships with their dysfunctional mothers were actually doing worse (including onset of mental illness) then those who continued to attempt to work on the relationship. It is as if the universe tells us that even a codependent connection was better then no connections at all. Since then the focus of my work was to assist clients on retaining some form of connection in a relationship without absorbing the poison. That my entail staying connected energetically and not physically.
Oxytocin- Mom, actually “good mom”. What came to mind as I read your blog was the movie “About Schmidt” where Warren Schmidt, who recently retired, decides to sponsor a child in Africa. As he goes through being shoved out of office (Insurance), losing a wife, unexpectedly, to an annuerism and having a daughter go ahead with marriage to someone he does not readily approve of, Schmidt copes by writing letters to his Sponsoree, Ndugo.
The movie ends with Warren coming home from the journey and opening a letter from Ndugo. Ndugo’s caregiver explains that Ndugo has heard every word he has written and she begs him to remember that Ndugo is only 6 years old. But Ndugo has made a drawing for Warren. It is a a picture of a big stick mother holding the hand of a little stick boy. The story ends.
Life is always better with a mommy to hold your hand. The problem is what to do when you don’t have a mommy? Then I guess a mommy substitute will have to do.
How do we learn to be that good mommy we missed?
All the best, Maia Mikhaili.
I agree with Francesca above. It would be interesting to see a study that looks at the range of attachment patterns and the levels of cortisol and oxytocin levels. I have a feeling the results would be very different in those mother/daughter relationships characterized by a history of more insecure and/or traumatic attachments. I would think that the hug would need to happen in the first place, and that it would need to feel good in the happening (there are many hugs that don’t). That being said, I am heartened by the acknowledgment of the presence of postive mother/daughter relationships and how significant this is in the lives of girls. In the clinical setting, I get to see the girls who are experiencing the formerly described…so good to be reminded.
You have made my day. I experienced a great deal of trauma as child and had a poor attachment with my mother, who died very young.
This week my son told me that he felt much better studying when I am close by, so we have agreed that I take time out to be with him as he revised for his exams. He is 15 and I realised with this just how much benefit all the therapy I have done over the years has given us. He clearly feels the attachment, which has been repaired as I was unable to give it to him when he was a baby.
I have had to do so much work on myself to be a good mother and its been very challening and very hard and its gratifying to get this evidence:)
Wow! Makes me glad I hugged my daughter this morning before school! Makes me think about calling my mom this evening.
Thanks for some good news!
As a therapist who works with many trauma clients, I can’t wait to show this to the parents of traumatized children who ARE caring and nurturing much of the time, yet become frustrated with their children’s behavior and wonder whether what they (the parents) do really matters. These parents need all the encouragement they can get to parent their challenging children.
I wonder if this data also holds true for boys who talk with their mothers? I’m thinking it does.
It is my understanding that Tiffany Fields’ research showed that babies exhibited similar brain patterns when one mother(who was not depressed) moved away from her baby and left the room and the other mother (who was depressed) came into the room and walked toward the baby. I grew up with a depressed mother and though we have worked out some of our issues I can’t say that I feel connected enough to her to call when I need nurturing. I have other’s that I feel connected with. Attachment research shows that if a mother is stressed for whatever reason she cannot bond to the child that comes into the world ready to attach. This leaves the child in a delima because her attachment figure who is also her survival person is there but ‘not at home.’
Very interesting research that you mention, thanks