Has anybody else noticed how dull the world has become these last five years? It feels like society lost its spark. Everybody’s hostile, isolated, scared, and on edge. I’ll watch movies from pre-2020 and get genuine nostalgia. The world just feels…different.
Its sad really. We’re not meant to live like this. Like monkeys in a cage, isolated and alone, constantly searching for our next hit of pixelated dopamine.
We’ve effectively nerfed the human experience. We’re living through the most socially disconnected period in human history. Suicide rates are at an all-time high, birth rates plummeting, social anxiety is endemic, and entire generations are effectively incapable of basic human interaction. We’ve created a world that systematically destroys the thing that makes us human: our capacity for connection.
This article is not to convince you of the problem, its to offer you a solution. A neurochemical, biological solution packaged in an actionable protocol.
This crisis can be reduced to a specific biological signature: Widespread oxytocin deficiency.
After getting one-shotted by SSRIs, I spent 2+ years in a dissociated haze. Blunted emotions, no reward signaling. Zero capacity for connection, even with myself. I functionally lost what it was to be human. My life was reduced to intellecutalism. I could think but not feel. And in that process I came across a core culprit: The shutdown of my oxytocinergic system.
The same patterns I experienced in severe form are now the baseline for millions of people. The modern world has created conditions that systematically undermine oxytocin production and receptor sensitivity. We have replaced human interaction with pixels, consumption, and constant stimulation.
This protocol is a systematic approach to restoring your natural capacity for human connection. To increase your social capacities and improve your quality of life. Most importantly, this protocol will make you more human. You’’ learn:
The specific behaviors and substances that destroy oxytocin function (and why some of the most normalized activities are the most damaging)
Targeted biological interventions that rebuild oxytocin receptor sensitivity and natural production rhythms
Behavioral practices that rewire your social brain and restore your capacity for genuine intimacy
Environmental modifications that create the conditions for natural bonding to occur
Implementation strategies that account for different personality types and current social comfort levels
Oxytocin Overview
Oxytocin is labeled as the love hormone, but thats reductive. Its really the pro-social hormone. Its what enabled us to take over the world. To collaborate, to navigate complex social structures, to lead, and to connect. Everything you find distasteful about modern human interactions can be traced back to anti-oxytocin behavior.
Enhances Social Salience: Makes social cues more noticeable and important
Reduces Social Fear: Decreases amygdala activation in response to social threats
Increases Trust: But specifically increases trust in people who seem trustworthy (it enhances discernment, not naivety)
Improves Emotional Recognition: Better at reading facial expressions and social cues
Enhances Empathy: Enables you to literally feel what others are feeling through mirror neuron activation and emotional resonance.
Oxytocin works by binding to specific receptors throughout your brain and body. The density and sensitivity of these receptors determine how strongly you respond to oxytocin. Chronic stress, trauma, and modern lifestyle factors can downregulate these receptors, making you less responsive to the bonding hormone even when it's present.
Oxytocin creates positive feedback cycles. Social connection releases oxytocin, which makes you more motivated to seek social connection, which releases more oxytocin. This is why socially connected people tend to become more socially connected over time, while isolated individuals often spiral deeper into isolation.
Neurochemicals as Archetypes
Neurochemicals like oxytocin are best understood through archetypes. Through this lens we can break down complex biological functions into universally understandable behaviors. A few examples:
Dopamine = The Explorer
Motivation, novelty, anticipation, reward, pursuit
Testosterone = The King
Dominance, confidence, action, boundary enforcement
GABA = The Monk
Inhibition, regulation, sensory dampening
Acetylcholine = The Scribe
Focused attention, sensory tuning, learning
Oxytocin = The Harmonizer
Bonding, safety, trust, co-regulation
Neurochemicals operate like a council, each applying their own your thoughts, actions, and behaviors to the kingdom that is you. When one archetype dominates, imbalance occurs. Chaos ensues and the kingdom suffers. Depending on the circumstances, you may want to empower one neurochemical over the other. GABA-maxxing doesn’t help when you’re being chased by a lion. Laser-focused Dopamine-maxxing doesn’t help when you’re trying to relax with friends. You must know these archetypes on a personal level so you can identify which ones need to be optimized.
I go insofar as to purposefully induce specific states of short-term dominance so I can better understand each of their impact on my brain chemistry. With that frame in mind, lets lay out the Low oxytocin vs High oxytocin archetypes
The Low Oxytocin Archetype
The best way to describe the low oxytocin archetype is guarded, jaded, and on high alert. They have adopted behaviors originally designed to protect but have evolved into an emotional fortress that keeps them disconnected and walled off. Its like watching life through a glass, surrounded by people but fundamentally alone. Engagement remains surface-level while their true self is locked away. The world gets divided into simple categories: safe or dangerous, good or bad, strong or weak. Its worldview is dictated by black and white thinking to provide a sense of control. This is not an archetype you want to occupy long-term.
The low-oxytocin archetype is usually accompanied with high cortisol/norepinephrine. Alone, isolated, and stressed the f*ck out. Usually some level of impaired GABA that leads to anxiety & emotional numbness. This causes a number of issues:
Low-Oxytocin Roadblocks:
Difficulty forming/sustaining relationships
Flat emotional expression
Hypervigilance in social settings
Cynicism & bitterness
Over-emphasis on logic/intellect to make up for lack of emotional connection
You stay in this state long enough and you eventually accept it for who you are and build around it, but remember, its not you, its an overactive archetype embodied through you.
This plays out in your physiology as well:
Chronic muscle tension, especially in jaw, shoulders & gut
Shallow breathing, low HRV
Digestive issues because of sympathetic dominance
Fatigue from social interactions
Deeper Origins:
Our experiences influence our brain states and our brain states influence our experiences. If you were socially isolated or emotionally neglected during your formative years, that will 100% show itself in the intricacies of your nervous system to this day.
Emotions and feelings are convoluted. Trying to heal trauma can do more harm than good, especially for men. Looking at things from a neurochemical level is more actionable, tangible, and objective. It gives you a sense of agency, it avoids the learned helplessness that can come from fixating on being “broken”. Most importantly, It gives you something to ACT on. If any of these sound like you, oxytocin is a good place to start.
The High-Oxytocin Archetype
Now lets look at the flip-side. The High-oxytocin archetype AKA the aura-maxxor. This is when your nervous system is so regulated that it regulates others. You attract others like a magnet, even animals flock to you like you’ve got a plus one to Noah’s Ark. You effortlessly relate to others, people are drawn to you for advice, they confide in you without you even needing to say anything. Oxytocin is aura.
I’m sure you’ve met somebody like this. Maybe its been you at one point. Oxytocin gives life meaning. Without it, the world is grey and mid.
High-Oxytocin in a Nutshell:
Emotionally grounded, present, and attuned
Can connect deeply without losing yourself
Navigates tension with composure and warmth
Transforms spaces just by being in them
When you’re high-oxytocin, you’re emotionally intelligent without overprocessing. You trust others with discernment (can easily weed out bad apples). You read and respond to emotional states with ease. You can help others without getting sucked into their problems. Connection feels real, interactions feel real, YOU feel real.
Modern Society = Mass Oxytocin Depletion Event
For hundreds of thousands of years, we lived in tight-knit communities where oxytocin flowed naturally through daily life. Extended families raised children together, physical work was done in groups, meals were communal rituals, community was everything.
Today, that environment has been almost entirely eradicated. We wake up alone, stare at screens alone, work in isolated cubicles, eat meals while scrolling, and fall asleep doomscrolling ragebait. Few places in America are truly walkable, community gathering is rare outside of church and jiu jitsu gyms, and even then it all feels… detached.
Technology amplified this 100 fold. Social media exploits our deep need for connection that leaves us more disconnected than before. Video games offer the simulation of achievement and community without the actual social bonding that makes these meaningful. The average person spends over seven hours a day looking at screens, time that would otherwise be spent in face-to-face interaction.
Imagine what impact this has on the younger generations. Kids literally spend more time looking at pixels than they do other people. We’re raising entire generations who have never experienced the deep nervous system regulation that comes from consistent, attuned human contact.
The 24/7 news cycle keeps us in a constant state of perceived threat, keeping us in the low-oxytocin “threat-sensing” state while making the actual sources of danger feel abstract and unaddressable (recipe for learned helplessness). We’re designed to respond to immediate, physical threats that can be resolved through action, not to the ambient anxiety of internet news.
Why Does Society Want Oxytocin Depletion?
Disconnected individuals make better consumers. When people lack strong community bonds they’re more likely to seek fulfillment through purchasing. Loneliness drives consumption. Comfort food, retail therapy, subscription streaming, all meager attempts to fill the void. Industries have emerged specifically to monetize human disconnection. Dating apps profit from keeping users single and searching. Social media makes money by keeping people ON the platform, when they know damn well that meaningful connection happens offline. The pharmaceutical industry benefits enormously from the anxiety, depression, and social dysfunction that arises from oxytocin deficiency.
Isolated individuals are more politically manageable. Strong communities develop collective power, people with shaky identities & belief systems capitulate to the loudest voices. Decoupling horizontal relationships (with peers, neighbors, family) increases dependency on vertical relationships with institutions, authorities, and systems.
Intergenerational Oxytocin Deficiency
Whats most concerning is how oxytocin deficiency perpetuates itself across generations. Parents who never develop secure attachment and robust social bonding capacity struggle to provide these experiences to their children in their most formative years. Children raised by emotionally disconnected parents in socially isolated environments develop nervous systems wired for threat rather than connection. They grow up to find intimacy uncomfortable, relationships draining, and group participation anxiety-inducing. They then repeat this cycle with their children ad infinatum.
The modern oxytocin crisis as a whole creates a self-reinforcing cycle. Disconnected invidivuals lack the social skills and emotional capacity to build the very relationships that would heal their disconnection. Anxiety about social interactions leads to more isolation which increases anxiety, which leads to more isolation. These skills are no different than muscles: If you don’t use them you lose them.
So… What Do We Do About this?
Understanding the biochemical nature of disconnection is the first step to addressing it. It recategorizes what most would initially consider an “abstract psychological theory of humanity” into a tangible, addressable, health problem. Everybody understands the paleo diet, but we flinch when applying the “live how you are designed to live” philosophy to other areas of our life.
This is where the Oxytocin Maxxing Protocol comes into play. There is never one solution to complex problems like this, the protocols that work are the ones that employ every possible vector of improvement and optimization. Compounding biological interventions with behavioral interventions amplifies both sevenfold. Taking dopamine precursors improves focus. Abstaining from overstimulation also improves focus. Taking dopamine precursors while abstaining from overstimulation improves focus exponentially more than either.
Now… Onward to the Oxytocin Maxxing Protocol
The Oxytocin Maxxing Protocol
A Tactician’s Guide to Regaining Your Humanity
The best protocols blend biological tools and behavioral change. The oxytocin maxxing protocol is no different. This protocol, like every great protocol, starts with what to avoid.
Phase 1: Avoiding Oxytocin Detractors
You can eat all the superfoods in the world, but if you’re still binging skittles and IPAs, don’t expect to be shredded & energetic. The same applies here.
Overstimulation
Screens, novelty seeking, doom scrolling, stimulant abuse. Overstimulation keeps your sympathetic nervous system in overdrive, burning out your HPA axis and keeping cortisol & adrenaline high. You’re stuck in defensive/reactionary mode, the exact mode that blunts oxytocin receptor function. Stay in this state long enough and your oxytocin receptors will effectively go offline.
Overstimulation drives dopamine spikes, which is the most excitatory thing possible (too much dopamine in your synapses is neurotoxic). If dopamine is constantly elevated, oxytocin’s effects are blunted.
More time in front of screens means less time with other people. You’re wiring your brain to derive pleasure from pixels when its meant to be from people. Digital isolation is this generation’s Black Plague.
High Stress Habits
Cortisol is an evolutionary survival mechanism for immediate, actionable stressors. We live in a world paralyzed by vague, distant threats. Wars happening on the other side of the globe, looming financial issues, biological bombardment slowly draining us of our wellbeing. We wake up stressed and stay stressed until we fall asleep.
High Cortisol suppresses oxytocin. No time to be empathetic & relaxed when you’re about to be eaten by a lion. On a long enough time frame, your genes rewrite themselves to operate from a high stress baseline and make you socially inept in the process.
Be militant about removing meaningless stressors. If you can’t do something about it, don’t worry about it. Ruthelessly refine your locus of control. Get rid of meaningless stressors. Cut drama out of your life. Reject the 24/7 news cycle. This is essential to retain any semblance of social-adaptiveness in 2025.
Social Isolation
Modern society makes isolation easy and even socially acceptable. You work from home, eat from home, shop from home, and entertain yourself indefinitely without ever needing to interact with another human. You spend enough time watching Youtube and scrolling Instagram to scratch the itch, but are not meeting the base need of meaningful human connection.
They ran this study on mice and all of the subjects became anxious trainwrecks in just five weeks. I know people who haven’t actually connected with people in years. Social isolation effectively shuts off your oxytocin receptors. If you don’t use it you lose it.
The longer you go without social connection, the harder it becomes to reconnect. You essentially cuck yourself into lonerism.
Your social skills atrophy
You feel less motivated to reach out
Touch or eye contact feels awkard
You feel flat & disconnected
This is a biological rewiring that keeps you in your apartment. Scrolling, consuming, but never connecting. Reject this cuckery. Restart the pro-social feedback loop.
Porn
80% of the internet is porn and gambling. Signs of a degenerate society at the end of a civilization. Every other post on the internet is a funnel to an OnlyFans. Man was not meant to see near-naked women all day, and definitely not meant to fantasize to pixels. Nothing fries your brain faster than porn because nothing is more stimulating to your brain than sex (The prime driver of desire is procreation).
Porn floods your brain with stimulation while completely bypassing the bonding mechanisms that evultion designed to accompany sexual experience. Its like spiritual aspartame. Porn provides neurotoxic levels of dopamine without any of the oxytocin that should come with it. This creates a neuro-chemical short-circuit: all the pleasure without any of the risk or vulnerability that comes with intimacy. No wonder we have a fertility crisis.
If there is one thing you need to abstain from entirely, its porn. You are cucking yourself, literally. Remove it from your life. Its poison. Refine your social media feeds, resist temptation. Restraint is more gratifying than indulgence.
Other Notable Mentions:
Cannabis
Poor sleep
Inflammatory diet
Video games
This is all one big mixed bag. These factors multiply each other. Porn reduces motivation to pursue real relationships, making social isolation more likely. Social isolation increases anxiety & depression, making doomscrolling & drugs more appealing. Poor sleep makes everything harder, including the self-discipline necessary to break these patterns.
The good news is the compound effect works in reverse too. Every positive change makes the others easier. You gain momentum, and more importantly you gain hope.
The Pro-Oxytocin Playbook
To regain proper oxytocinergic function, you need a protocol that does three things:
Rebuild oxytocin receptor sensitivity
Restore natural oxytocin production rhythms
Reintegrate real-world social and sensory cues
Retrain your systems to respond to oxytocin properly. To release it, receive it, and reinforce the system as a whole. Think of these as side quests, oxytocin-maxxing if you will. Each positive action revs up your pro-oxytocin flywheel:
Biological Levers for Oxytocin Release:
I’ve compiled a list of tools that can help enhance your natural oxytocinergic function. Stack these strategically to kickstart your function and enhance behavioral changes
L.Reuteri
Your gut bacteria directly influence your social behavior. If you want a rabbit hole look up the correlation between autism and gut dysbiosis. L.reuteri is a bacteria strain that stimulates oxytocin release from the hypothalamus. It also lowers inflammation, increases testosterone, and reduces chronic inflammation. All key levers to make you a more pro-social human.
MIT studies found that mice given L. reuteri showed:
Increased social interaction and bonding behavior
Higher oxytocin levels
Improved coat shininess (attractiveness marker)
Better stress resilience
Enhanced immune function
Protocol: Use the ATCC PTA 6475 applied in studies. Toniiq or BioGaia are good brands for this. Takes about 4-8 weeks to establish stable gut colonization. Combine with prebiotic fiber to feed beneficial bacteria. Warning: will make your balls bigger.