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The Biology of Love - your cells hold the keys… By Renchia Droganis, CEO and Founder, Africology “When you fall in love, you tend to suddenly notice the intricate details of plants; and hear hidden notes in old, forgotten pieces of music. You become more patient, less likely to be derailed by little niggles, and for the first time in years, you learn to treat yourself kindly - introducing a new level of grace in all of your inner dialogues.” - Renchia Droganis, CEO and Founder, Africology As we go through life, we experience the range of human emotions to a greater or lesser extent at various times, but when it comes to love, it seems like the one constant that stays at our sides like a loyal companion. From being head over heels with infatuation, to feeling a deep-seated and allencompassing affection for another, we essentially perceive the world around us through our experiences in love. In fact - it's such a strong and important emotion that it goes beyond our feelings and sensory perceptions, and molecular biologists have been discovering exciting links between stem cells and profound feelings of love. In The Honeymoon Effect, Dr. Bruce Lipton's vivid and inspiring book on maintaining the bliss, passion, energy, and health of great love, he argues that by harnessing all the cells in our bodies for good, we can create 'honeymoon relationships' for couples, and a super-organism - humanity - to heal our planet. All of your cells work in tandem to accomplish various vital tasks such as breathing and making your heart pump, and being in love reverberates on a cellular level too. There are receptor proteins on the surface of cells, which transform all kinds of signals they receive from the world outside into vibrations and energies to send to the brain. The bigger the emotion, the bigger the reaction, of
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course, and when it comes to love, it not only alters our perceptions of the world profoundly - but it's literally visible in every cell of our body. The intricate dance of the heart, body and mind We all know that love makes you happier, but it also improves your health - and as Dr. Lipton points out, researchers like the ones at HeartMath have shown that its impact on the body is real, and measurable. When the experts zoomed in on the effects of being truly connected to your heart activating feelings such as love and gratitude - they found that something shifts, and a more coherent heartbeat kicks in. This in turn makes our brains sharper, and reduces stress hormones (the so-called flight-orflight/sympathetic nervous system), while boosting the parasympathetic nervous system and producing the anti-ageing hormone DHEA. Factors like stress, nutrition and toxins can affect the regulation of gene expression to a large extent (epigenetics). However, Dr. Lipton says new research shows that environmental factors are more likely to cause illness than genes - and that our perception of our environment affects our health 90% of the time. In the same vein, he attests that the protein structures in our cells respond more to non-physical cues than chemical ones, which means our perceptions have far more of an impact on our health and wellbeing than modern medicine! It's all about belief - if you keep telling yourself you are or will get ill, this message will be sent to your brain, and your mind will eventually work with your cells to make it come true. The first step is to shift your beliefs, and choose a mindset that invites real love, health and longevity. Being aware of the inner workings of love on a cellular level can be incredibly empowering, says
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Dr. Lipton, and by changing our outlook on life and rewiring love into our cellular memory, we can elevate the quality of our lives and our collective awareness as we create a better future for ourselves, and for everyone else in the world. Stronger together Taking this mindset one step further, Dr. Lipton is a big proponent of the profound power of collective consciousness. One mind is not nearly as aware as a group that's united, and just like 50 trillion cells in the body can work together for it to function optimally as a whole, so can 7 billion humans to ensure the future success of our planet. When a cell's evolution is successful, it can join other cells and they can collectively expand their capability and consciousness. “Science suggests that the next stage of human evolution will be marked by an awareness that we are all interdependent cells within the super-organism called humanity.” - Dr. Bruce Lipton Animals and plants have known innately how to do this for billions of years and when we reconnect with our true ability to love, and unleash its effects in our bodies, it can tap into the power of Biomimicry - using the wisdom of nature to solve the problems that are facing mankind. Here's to the month of love, here's to you, and here's to a growing collective consciousness of love that is bound to heal us individually - and the world as a whole. To loosely quote the beautiful intentions of Dr. Lipton: may the proteins in your cells dance, swoon and sway with love! When Africology touches your skin, it touches your soul.
