The Evolution of Leadership: Team Building and Oxytocin
How can we boost our leadership and team building in a world of social distancing and remote work? Figuring out ways to connect with people has shot up on the priority list. Oxytocin is a key hormone in building the social bond. How can we hack it?
The other day, after an appropriately distanced dinner with a friend, I felt that odd dip of disappointment when we said goodbye: no hugs, no cheek kisses (I’m in France), no physical contact. Nothing but a weak wave from a distance. A feeling of something unfinished. Familiar these days as we navigate this distanced world where the space between people is full of odd mixtures of anticlimax, longing, fear, and other emotions.
Why Is Touch So Important to Humans?
There is no doubt about our nature as social beings, and it extends to physical touch and the resulting physiological impact on us. Touch releases the hormones that encourage social bonding and interactions, notably oxytocin, which contributes to our ability to build sustainable relationships with other people. It leads to empathy, communication, openness, and feelings of trust and safety. Not to mention reduced stress, increased calm, improved mood, feelings of contentment and increased creativity.
All things leaders and teams need right now.
Now that we are all touch-deprived, what do we do? How can we boost our oxytocin?
Connecting
Positive social interactions increase oxytocin levels. Even social media connection can give you a bump in your feel-good hormone levels, when we really listen, taking time to feel the connection, whatever the medium. We do this when we give people our undivided attention. Encouraging and complimenting others works too: oxytocin increases when we are compassionate and kind with others.
So, whether it’s closing all those tabs while you’re on a video call, starting the conversation with a compliment and kind words, or sharing a leisurely veggie-filled picnic or a coffee with friends, it’s time to focus on connecting with other people however we can.
Feeling
Suppressing your emotions can lower oxytocin levels, so best to feel them for real. The actual physiological emotional response—the chemical surge throughout the body—lasts about 90 seconds. From there on out it’s your thoughts that feed the loop. So, we can train ourselves to feel and accept the emotional surge, acknowledge it and let it go.
Balancing out negative emotions with gratitude and giving will calm stress hormones and release oxytocin, along with mood-stabilising serotonin and pain-killing endorphins.
Also, try random acts of kindness, smiling and laughing to release oxytocin.
Who’d Have Known…
Some Dutch docs hypothesize that the “feeling of thirst” activates oxytocin-producing parts of the brain and suggest “intermittent bulk drinking.” They’re not talking about alcohol here. Like animals that go to the watering hole to quench their thirst with a bunch of other animals (so they need to get along), the idea would be rather than sipping your water bottle of water all day long, to do it less frequently, drinking more each time so you get the same total amount. It could increase oxytocin signalling, building up human trust.
Hacking Leadership and Team Building
To lead with empathy and build strong teams, we can start by hacking our own oxytocin production. Here are a few basics.
Get outside. In the sun, your skin synthesizes vitamin D, which activates and controls oxytocin levels.
Eat fat. Our brains need healthy Omega-3 fat to make enough neurotransmitters to send messages effectively.
Enjoy your veggies. The vitamin C in them stimulates the secretion of oxytocin.
Consume dark chocolate. Need I say more? You can also supplement with magnesium, which increases the action of oxytocin. Chocolate also produces anandamide, a neurotransmitter that blocks feeling of pain and can calm you down. Just so you know, people whose genes show a lower number of oxytocin receptors in the brain eat more chocolate.
Don’t be too quick to quit caffeine. It significantly increases the release of oxytocin. There’s a good reason to have coffee with people.
Exercise. It not only releases endorphins, but also increases oxytocin and gets it circulating throughout the body.
Listen to music. It produces a slight bump in oxytocin.
Take cold showers. Cold exposure significantly upregulates oxytocin levels in the brain. Warm temperatures and sweating also activate specific oxytocin-producing parts of the brain which rallies for hot-cold alternating showers.