Touch not only allows us to connect with others, but also to feel we exist.
If we missed touching others so much during this health crisis, it is not by chance. Kissing, hugging, shaking hands or hugging are all automatic gestures that have a significant hormonal effect on our pleasure or our stress.
Touch, a sense necessary for development from birth.
Among our five senses, touch is the one that develops first in the mother’s womb. If from birth, “skin to skin” has shown its benefits for the development of the most premature babies, it is not by chance.
Indeed, it is often when one is deprived of it that irreversible deficiencies appear: growth retardation, retardation of cognitive and intellectual development, affective deficiencies… Whether in the youngest or in adulthood, lack of physical contact increases the stress so much that the consequences can be very serious.
Get into cuddle therapy.
Being deprived of physical contact for several months and thinking that touching the other could give them a disease has affected us all to varying degrees. The consequences for the most fragile such as single people, the elderly or those suffering from psychological disorders are unsurprisingly the most important and reveal the importance of physical contact.
If the circumstances allow it (vaccination or recovery from Covid 19 infection), cuddling for a few seconds is enough to release not only oxytocin, the attachment hormone, but also endorphin, the hormone pleasure, and helps to significantly lower cortisol, the stress hormone. Not to mention its effects on lowering blood pressure, strengthening the immune system, or increasing self-esteem and morale.
Find out more: “The Benefits of Touch” by Tiffany Field, Payot & rives editions.
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