Sort Your Brain Out
Muller x My Protein commissioned me to dig into the scientific research on the impact of exercise on the human brain for a recent PR campaign “Sweat to Spark”. They wanted to know if there was any evidence to support the idea that exercise primes our brains for social interaction. As it turns out, there’s plenty!
The brain benefits of mindfulness meditation are numerous and I’ve written about it in this brain blog many times and the literature support
Hypothalamus’s PVN (red) prepares the body for sex by sending a torrent of electrical messages along neurons within the spinal cord which ultimately releases a cocktail of neurotransmitters into the genitals. In both men and women this leads to vasocongestion whereby the genitals become engorged with blood – leading to an erection in men and lubrication, increase in vaginal depth and diameter in women.
Tonight at 8pm GMT (Wed 16th Nov 2011) I make my second appearance on MTV Europe offering a few more neuroscience-informed flirting tips to fashion journalist Louise Roe’s latest Plain Jane – Jamie.
This time the date training was not set in the Swiss Alps but instead, a little closer to home, in Spitalfields market. I challenged Jamie to supercharge her womanly allure by offering free hand massages to unsuspecting young men whilst making chit chat along themes that should get their brain in a state of high excitement.
Once again using an understanding of what goes on in the brain when a person is in love can inform some easy-to-follow rules of thumb that: boost a person’s confidence, release the just the right cocktail of neurotransmitters and neurohormones in the target’s brain and encourage fluid conversational exchanges on topics that rapidly foster a bond between any two humans, whether romantic or otherwise.
Last summer, I was invited out to the beautiful alpine lake town of Montreaux (directly opposite the iconic mountains of Evian bottle fame, incidentally) to provide a little brain-informed date training. Having a neuroscientist provide inspiration to a girl trying to get ahead in the love game may sound a bit odd, but at the end of the day it is the brain after all that produces the experience of love in the first place. Understanding the prevailing conditions in which a brain is likely to fall into the state of being in love can provide some easy-to-follow rules of thumb that help to boost a person’s confidence – one of the most powerful tools in romance.