Friday 18 March 2011

Being Hugged and Hugging People Improves Health

By Kirsten Whittaker




Science is coming to find that touch is perhaps the ultimate mind/body medicine as it improves health. Not only does it lower blood pressure and heart rate, but it also serves to increase immune function and ease pain, not to mention having you feeling happier and less anxious. Better yet, it doesn't seem to matter if you're being hugged or hugging people.

Here are some great ways to enjoy the benefits of touch...

1. Get a massage

Even a quick one at the mall or an inept one from your partner will do the trick. Anyone who's ever gotten a massage knows how it can help you unwind. But it's not all in your head, being massaged causes muscles to relax, your heartbeat to slow, your blood pressure to fall and levels of stress hormone cortisol to go down as well.

Cortisol suppresses the immune system, but any activity that sets off the relaxation response will also trigger the rebooting of the immune response.

2. Get (or Give) A Hug

When you embrace your partner, your mom, a child or close friend, your body is flooded with oxytocin, a so-called "bonding hormone" that makes you feel secure and builds trust while also bringing down cortisol levels and reducing stress.

Women who received more cuddles from partners had elevated levels of oxytocin, reduced blood pressure and lower heart rates than women who didn't get hugged often according to research.

3. Hold Hands

It's a simple pleasure... entwining your fingers with your one-and-only is super calming, a result confirmed when researchers gave functional MRIs to 16 married women after telling them they might get a mild shock. When the women held hands with one of the experimenters, the stress response seen on the scans calmed, but when they held hands with their husbands, it really eased quite a bit.

What's more, when you're in a happy relationship, holding hands cuts stress related activity in the hypothalamus, and this brings down the levels of cortisol going through your body, as well as reducing pain sensors in the brain.

4. Getting Intimate

No surprise here... but being intimate with your partner... the skin-to-skin stroking and touching, floods us with oxytocin and feel good endorphins. Regular sexual activity also does the body good, and might just keep us from getting sick as often.

Those who had sex up to twice a week had 30% more immunoglobulin A (IgA) (needed for fighting off infections) in their saliva than those who didn't do it as often according to a recent study.

5. Cuddle with a pet

If you have a pet as part of your life, you've probably already noticed how scratching them behind the ears, patting their fur or rubbing their little bellies reduces your own feelings of tension.

Research shows that a person's blood pressure drops when they pet dogs; especially if it's a dog they know and love. Your feelings of pain may also be reduced by spending time with your pet, as you're focusing on your pet and not your own issues. So it's not only contact with other humans that improves health.

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