The brain harbors beneficial autoregulatory path-
ways and salutogenic functions that contribute to
health by enabling one’s experiences in life – e.g.,
love – to benefit one’s health [14,16,19]. However, sci-
ence has long neglected these capacities, i.e., self-care
potential. Yet, in clinical medicine and particularly in
integrative or mind/body medical settings, including
certain forms of complementary medicine, these self-
healing capacities of the mind-brain construct have
become widely popular, and therefore research on the
neurobiological and physiological pathways underly-
ing such ‘healthy’ phenomena as love, or therapeutic
touch etc., has now gained recognition, i.e., funding
[11,13,16].
Professional clinical programs have recently
evolved that rely on sophisticated research and use
integrative medicine or stress management techniques
and approaches: Stress management is a form of medi-
cal life style modification towards a healthier or more
stress-resistant life (particularly with regard to hardi-
ness against stress-associated disease processes) that
has now proven to be efficient in a broad array of dis-
eases and conditions, namely cardiovascular, immune,
and neurological or psychiatric disorders, including
prevention [14,16,34,51]. In other words: Stress man-
agement may improve health [4,13]. Hence, stress
management techniques regularly include social sup-
port, meditation/relaxation techniques, and other
pleasurable activities that induce feelings of well-
being and protection, thereby facilitating positive
affect, resilience, spirituality, “loving-kindness,” com-
passion, and closeness or connectedness – states that
resemble the love concept as discussed above [2,4,5,
8,16,31,32,33,52]. Clearly, these activities and expe-
riences have proven to be biologically and medically
beneficial, that is, they help to stay healthy throughout
the challenges of life or improve the healing process
[14,26,45]. The placebo response may also be named
here, since it depends on positive therapy expecta-
tions, trust or belief, and it potentially acts via the
same neuronal reward pathways related to love, plea-
sure, motivation and behavior [9,15,16,19,39,46,48,
54]. Effects may thus be observed on psychological or
physiological levels, i.e., mind and body, truly indicat-
ing a holistic medical understanding of health and its
secondary implications.
Love and compassion, i.e., loving-kindness, are
integrated in mindfulness trainings such as mindful-
ness-based stress reduction [5,8,26]. Loving-kindness
meditation has been used for centuries in the Bud-
dhist tradition to develop love and transform anger
into compassion [5]. In a recent pilot study, this type
of intervention, delivered as an eight week program,
helped to reduce chronic pain, psychological distress,
and anger [5].
Positive emotions, compassion and happiness help
us to feel better, particularly in stress, and further they
improve bodily functions: Love, compassion and joy
make our immune system function better and help
to battle diseases [8,13,14,16,19,28]. Furthermore,
current research on these topics made the wellness
concept evolve from a sometimes esoteric or non-
scientific background and become a major focus of
progressive medical science [15,16,27,28,47,53]. Well-
being therefore is now acknowledged and recognized
as a powerful behavioral tool for supporting motiva-
tion and decision making, that is, choosing activities
that engage rather than numb our minds: If we heed
what gives us immediate pleasure and if we are skep-
tical of our ‘error-riddled’ memories and predictions,
we can learn to spend our money, time and attention
in ways that make us happier [19,27,28,42,53].
Survival and reproduction depend on the ability to
adapt patterns of social and reproductive behaviors to
environmental and social demands, i.e., flexibility [6].
Moderate pleasurable experiences, however, are able
to enhance biological flexibility, complexity and health
protection [12,14,19]. Thus, pleasure can be a resistance
resource, or it may serve salutogenesis and preven-
tion [11,19]. Furthermore, love and pleasure facilitate
trust and belief into the body’s capability of restor-
ing or maintaining health, i.e., self-healing capacities
[44,48]. Thereby, pleasure promotes the desired state of
dynamic balance illustrated above [12,19].
In humans, cognition and belief are vital for reward
and pleasure experiences [16]. Social contacts, in
addition, provide pleasure, hence survival [11,12,14].
These functions of love and pleasurable experiences
may even stimulate personal growth and develop-
ment [7,19,40,41,43,49]. Findings depicted in this
work therefore indicate a fine balance between differ-
ent physiological states and activity patterns of CNS
regions involved in love and attachment formation
[20]. This dynamic balance has to be maintained to
promote healthy social interactions and relationships,
which usually form the base of efficient reproduc-
tive behaviors [3,6,50]. On the other side, know ledge
obtained in this area may also help to understand dis-
eases or states where underlying brain circuitries are
interrupted, i.e., malfunctioning.
Taken together, engaging in joyful activities such
as love may activate areas in the brain responsible for
emotion, attention, motivation and memory (i.e., lim-
bic structures), and it may further serve to control the
ANS, i.e., stress reduction [14,15,16,17,18,19,21,22,23,
45,46,47]. This specific CNS activity pattern appears to
exert protective effects, even on the brain itself [14,16].
Moreover, anxiolytic effects of pleasurable experiences
may occur by promotion of an inhibitory tone in spe-
cific areas of the brain [10,19]. Thus, love and plea-
sure clearly are capable of stimulating health, well-
being and (re)productivity: This wonderful biological
instrument makes procreation and maintenance of
organisms and their species a deeply rewarding and
pleasurable experience [3], thus ensuring survival,
health, and perpetuation.