{"id":3489,"date":"2022-02-14T16:22:01","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T16:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/aer\/?p=3489"},"modified":"2022-02-14T16:22:01","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T16:22:01","slug":"brain-lessons-love-chocolate-and-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/aer\/2022\/02\/14\/brain-lessons-love-chocolate-and-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"BRAIN LESSONS – LOVE, CHOCOLATE AND STORYTELLING"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is Valentine\u2019s Day.\u00a0 My mind turns easily to a conversation I had while standing in the aisle of a church on the east side of Cleveland.\u00a0 This friendly woman chatting with me was probably in her mid-50\u2019s and had a charming mop of blonde curls.\u00a0 I was 26 with a not-so-charming amount of student loan debt.\u00a0 She had turned the conversation to her daughter, though I can\u2019t recall precisely how.\u00a0 Then, she said to me two important words.\u00a0 It was only the second time in my life I had heard them.\u00a0 One right after the other\u2014and full of meaning. When I heard them, my mind instantly, and without a flinch, turned back 14 years earlier to when I was in 6th<\/sup> grade at Center Street Elementary.\u00a0 There, in that school building and in that grade, was last time I had heard those same two words, one right after the other.\u00a0 Hearing them again caused that first time I had heard them to come back to me in a shot.\u00a0 This woman had given me her daughter\u2019s first and last name, and I instantly recognized it.\u00a0 14 years later\u2014and never having once met or spoken to her daughter\u2014I knew the name enough to remember that a friend of mine had said that name to me 14 years earlier.\u00a0 He said that name just one time as he told me about a girl on his bus.\u00a0 Using his bus route, I told that nice woman right there in that aisle that I actually knew<\/em><\/strong> her daughter\u2019s name and I identified, within about 10 houses, the closest major landmark to their house. \u00a0I nearly shocked her blonde curls straight.\u00a0 The name she gave me in that aisle was the name of the woman who, three years later, I would marry in that same church.\u00a0 I would see her come down that same aisle to meet me at the altar. \u00a0I think of it now and it\u2019s as if Cupid himself, cherubic and grinning with the secret knowledge of his purpose, had fired that name through the corridor of years knowing that I was at the end of his arrow\u2019s flight.<\/p>\n

I am sure you have heard it cheaply stated that love and chocolate produce the same chemicals in the brain\u2014that, from a brain chemistry point of view, there is very little distinction between their intra-cranial lives.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t feel true though, does it?\u00a0 If you have known love, you have surely known it more completely than you have known any really good chocolate you\u2019ve ever had.\u00a0 And when my amazing wife gives me really good chocolate today\u2014because she knows its power over me\u2014these chemicals will stir in me again.\u00a0 Now, what if I told you that there was a chance that the story I shared above stirred up the same chemical in your brain?\u00a0 What if I told you that stories are like love and chocolate?<\/p>\n

Part of the power of chocolate lies in its ability to produce dopamine and oxytocin.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Dopamine might not need as much introduction as oxytocin, so let me informally introduce oxytocin to you here.\u00a0 Oxytocin is quite the Valentine\u2019s Day hormone.\u00a0 It is released in us when we are hugged, kissed, or have sexual contact.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Associated with other kinds of human bonding, it is also released during childbirth and breastfeeding.[3]<\/a> \u00a0This chemical river cuts a deep and important channel, indeed, as rising and falling oxytocin levels have actually been correlated to rising and falling levels of empathy.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

An oxytocin researcher by the name of Jeffery Zacks has tried to find ways to stimulate the production of oxytocin.\u00a0 Here, we arrive at the crux of this month\u2019s blog piece, packaged into this quote from Zacks: \u201cOf all the stimuli we\u2019ve developed that release oxytocin, [consuming stories] was the best.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 The more emotionally charged the story, the higher the release of oxytocin.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Additionally, a group of researchers tested the power of storytelling with hospitalized children.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 They found that after just 30 minutes of having stories read to them, the children showed a marked increase in salivary oxytocin levels, showed lower levels of cortisol\u2014a stress hormone, reported feeling less pain, and made more positive word associations with words like \u201cdoctor,\u201d \u201cnurse,\u201d and \u201chospital.\u201d[8]<\/a>\u00a0 Now if that doesn\u2019t melt an icy lawyer\u2019s heart on Valentine\u2019s Day, I don\u2019t know what will.\u00a0 As I frequently say in this space, the trial applications of storytelling and oxytocin don\u2019t need to be explored at length in this short blog.\u00a0 It will suffice to ponder for a moment just how much we would like our jurors to feel bonded to our clients and to feel the empathy we hope will result when they hear our emotionally charged tale of injustice.\u00a0 Consider this the chemical rationale for working on the craft of our courtroom storytelling.<\/p>\n

Ask my wife how we met and she will never include in that narrative the story of how I remembered her name 14 years after hearing it for the first and only time.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that she sees no mystery in it.\u00a0 It\u2019s simply that this part of our story is more mine than hers.\u00a0 Today, we and our loved ones will write another line, separately and together, in the story of our shared lives.\u00a0 Love moves the pen.\u00a0 Love bends the story arcs of our lives together as easily as a tailor bends a thread to her will.\u00a0 I love this trial advocacy community that so many of you have helped forge over the years.\u00a0 And, yes, perhaps I feel a little sappy about our trial advocacy community on a day like today\u2026but you would understand how I feel if you knew how much chocolate I\u2019ve already consumed.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Peter Hess, Do You Love Chocolate? Blame Your Oxytocin Receptors, <\/em>Inverse (Apr. 23, 2017, 2:14 PM), https:\/\/www.inverse.com\/article\/30664-genes-diet-chocolate-oxytocin<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Phoebe Weston, Why chocolates are the perfect gift for your partner: The sweet treats stimulate the same hormone as sex, <\/em>Daily Mail (Apr. 9, 2018, 7:13 AM), https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sciencetech\/article-5593981\/Chocolate-really-DOES-melt-heart-loved-ones-say-researchers.html<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Stephanie Watson, Oxytocin: The love hormone, <\/em>Harvard Health Publishing: Harvard Health Blog (Jul. 20, 2021), https:\/\/www.health.harvard.edu\/mind-and-mood\/oxytocin-the-love-hormone<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Jessica Marshall, Gripping yarns, <\/em>209 New Scientist, no. 2799, Feb. 12, 2011 at 45, 47.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Id.<\/em> at 46-47.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Id. <\/em>at 46.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> See <\/em>Guilherme Brockington, et al., Storytelling increases oxytocin and positive emotions and decreases cortisol and pain in hospitalized children, <\/em>118 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, no. 22, May 24, 2021 at 1-7.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> See Id., generally.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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