Musings | Hugs
“Sometimes a hug is all you need to make you feel better”
Hugging has huge benefits for all of us – hugs help kids get sleepy at bedtime and aid babies in intensive care to survive and thrive. When we embrace others, the love and happiness hormones (oxytocin and serotonin) are released, and these create feelings of calm, helping us combat depression and anxiety. Hugs between adult couples have been shown to lower blood pressure too, and hugs, in general, can reduce stress, boost heart health and make us happier. We are likely not aware of our need for touch (it is unconscious) or how important it is to our well-being (as infants, we cannot survive without it), but the pandemic may be creating a void you can’t quite put your finger on, and that void may be the absence of touch (hugs). Our need for touch is innate and begins before we are born.
A recent Guardian article by Eleanor Morgan outlined how a year without hugs could impact us, particularly those who have spent much of the lockdowns alone. There has been much said about isolation and loneliness throughout the pandemic, but, Morgan notes, we often don’t realize that what lonely people aren’t getting is touch.
Touch, it turns out, has a significant impact on our well-being, both physically and psychologically. We are the recipients of more touch than we realize from our family and close friends – when we can see them and interact. When, in times like this, we are isolated from our close contacts, the lack of touch and our inability to embrace others in our lives can increase anxiety and make it more difficult for us to manage stress and the effects of physical and emotional pain.
You may not be a “hugger” and therefore may not be experiencing any angst in this area. We are all wired differently if this is you; that may be a pandemic advantage. If, however, you are struggling with the lack of hugs in your life, take solace in the fact that the challenges a lack of this type of connection to others brings are rooted in our biological need for touch and nothing else. Below are some tips to help you navigate this time, and while there is no real substitute for what we get through our interaction with other humans, there are other ways we can fill our hug void:
1. Weighted blankets can help us feel calmer and simulate being hugged.
2. Interacting with pets can help; when we pet our dog or cat, we engage the same systems that would be activated if our dog or cat was petting us.
3. When it is safe to interact with those in your bubble, communicate your need for hugs with those close to you.
4. We can experience touch vicariously when watching characters on TV engaging in social connections with others.
The pandemic has certainly brought with it challenges we could never have imagined. Would you have thought a year ago you’d be reading a note not just about hugs (not that out of the ordinary) but about what happens when we are prevented (for the most part) from hugging those close to us for over a year? Remember, if this is an area you are struggling with, your struggle is largely because our need for touch is hardwired into us, and we are not wired to be completely isolated from each other. It may help to understand our innate need for touch further. Check out the articles below for more insight and to gain additional understanding.