Why Is Oxytocin Called the 'Cuddle Hormone'?

The Hormone That Turned Physical Touch Into a Biological Data Point

Spanish psychiatrist Marian Rojas Estapé devotes the first chapter of her book Encuentra tu persona vitamina to explaining why oxytocin has earned the nickname “cuddle hormone.” The reason is easy to state and complex to sustain: this hormone is released, measurably, during affectionate physical contact (a hug, a caress, even sustained eye contact), and its release is linked to states of calm, trust, and closeness toward the other person.

A note on scope: this article summarizes popular-science ideas from psychiatrist Marian Rojas Estapé in Encuentra tu persona vitamina, in dialogue with Bowlby and Ainsworth’s attachment theory covered elsewhere in this category. It’s meant purely for informational purposes and doesn’t replace the assessment or judgment of a mental health professional.

The counterpoint: cortisol as an “old acquaintance”

Rojas Estapé doesn’t present oxytocin in isolation, but in direct contrast with cortisol, which she describes as “an old acquaintance”: the hormone the body releases in response to stress and perceived threat. While cortisol prepares the body for alertness and defense, oxytocin does almost the opposite: it favors approach, trust, and bonding. The author argues that contemporary life is, in her own words, “inflammatory”: not so much because of sharp spikes of acute stress, but because of a low, sustained activation of the alarm system, held for far longer than the human body was built to tolerate.

This idea connects directly to why social contact functions, in her framing, almost like a biological regulator: if chronic stress keeps cortisol elevated in the background, bonds that trigger oxytocin would act as a real counterweight, not just an emotional one but a physiological one too.

An explicit warning against hormonal determinism

One nuance the author herself stresses, and one worth not skipping past, is her direct warning against what she calls “hormonal determinism.” Rojas Estapé doesn’t argue that a person is a simple puppet of their brain chemistry: hormones influence mood and behavior, but they don’t determine them mechanically, and they don’t cancel out the weight of someone’s history, context, or will. It’s an important distinction in a popular-science book, one that could easily fall into the opposite oversimplification (reducing all emotional life to a cocktail of neurotransmitters) and instead chooses to qualify it explicitly.

Why humans need bonding: Aristotle versus Hobbes

To argue that the need for social bonding isn’t a cultural whim but a biological condition, the author draws on two classic philosophical references and puts them in dialogue with each other. The first is Aristotle, with his famous claim that “man is by nature a social animal”: we are, on this reading, oriented from the start toward living in community, not as one option among others but as part of our own nature.

The second reference is the line from Thomas Hobbes (which the author herself notes was originally borrowed from Plautus) that “man is a wolf to man.” Rojas Estapé doesn’t dismiss it outright: she acknowledges there can be real competition for resources, and that this competition generates aggression between individuals. But she notes that this tension coexists with a majority sense of solidarity, one that isn’t limited to occasional charitable acts. As an example, she points out that the great religious traditions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism) all share love and respect for one’s neighbor as central ethical pillars of their practice, not as a secondary add-on.

The evidence she brings: isolation, the pandemic, and sacrifice

Beyond the philosophical argument, the author draws on a recent, verifiable event as evidence of this social need: the real psychological damage caused by pandemic lockdowns. That forced isolation, she argues, wasn’t just a logistical inconvenience, it was an involuntary empirical test of how much human beings need contact with others to sustain their psychological balance.

Along the same lines, she cites the behavior of healthcare workers during that same period (considerable personal sacrifice for the care of strangers) as evidence of an instinct to belong to something larger than oneself, one that goes beyond the rational cost-benefit calculation a purely Hobbesian reading of human nature would predict.

The clinical application: why she always asks about relationships

The chapter doesn’t stay in theory. Rojas Estapé describes her own clinical practice as a psychiatrist: in a first session with a patient, after discussing how they feel and what’s happening to them, there’s always a second phase where she explicitly asks about their relationships (partner, family, friends, coworkers). According to her clinical experience, in many cases the distress that brings a patient to her office originates, directly or indirectly, in that relational sphere, not only in isolated individual factors.

This observation connects naturally with the rest of this category’s content: Bowlby and Ainsworth’s attachment theory explains exactly how these relational patterns form from childhood, and why different attachment styles, like secure attachment or anxious attachment, lead to different ways of experiencing closeness, conflict, and the need for others in adult life. You can discover your own style with our attachment style test.