Recommendation #6
For a healthier, happier life is to hug or hold hands
As I look at the image of hands holding each other here, I remember the time when my mother came to live with us after she developed dementia. Before then, we hugged without thinking much about it. But now when she and I would sit together on the sofa watching Dancing with the Stars or Olympic ice dancers (she loved the music and movement), our hands would naturally entwine and we would both unconsciously move closer. Those are very precious memories that still comfort me.
I think most of us intuitively understand the importance of human touch for our physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. There is science behind this. It seems that sensors in our skin relay a positive response to certain kinds of touch directly to our brains. One study even suggests that some forms of touch can reduce chronic anxiety and “reverse the damage of social isolation” by releasing dopamine.
Some people think there is an epidemic of loneliness in our culture that became much more apparent during covid. We could zoom but not touch – and we suddenly realized that we had taken the ability to touch each other for granted. Fewer or no physical hugs. No pat on the actual back. Yes, we had words. How often would you say “hugs” when you said goodbye to someone long-distance? But it didn’t feel the same as an actual squeeze.
We use touch instinctively when children need to be soothed. I think that, especially when we get older, touch is an even more important sense. Our vision may become bleary, our hearing may be less sharp, our taste buds may lose the ability to savor, our sense of smell may diminish, but touch seems to remain a source of connection and solace to the very end. I remember sitting with my mother in the hospital when she was in a coma, holding her hand – the one way I thought she could still feel me – and taking comfort myself from that last chance to stay in touch with her as she took her final breath.
While the physical reasons that touch so touches us are fascinating (see the link to Richard Sima’s Washington Post article below), the mental and emotional components are finally bringing us to the whole-person approach of the Ageless Mind Project. That’s why I especially look forward to sharing Recommendation # 7 next time.
Richard Sima’s original article in the Washington Post, with much more detail, is available only to subscribers @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/02/09/social-touch-calm-anxiety-loneliness/
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