Hugs and caresses are normal gestures when we want to comfort a person who is tired, in a bad mood, or who has just received bad news. But why? Are these social constructs, or behaviors that arise from a real biological phenomenon? Scientists from the Neuroscience Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Art and Sciences in Amsterdam asked themselves this, and in an extensive analysis of the scientific literature, just published in the journal Nature Human Behaviorbelieve they have found the answer: gestures that express closeness through the sense of touch – they write – can in fact improve the emotional and physical state, reducing anxiety, depression and pain.
I study
The research analyzed 212 studies on the topic carried out in recent decades, which involved a total of 12,966 people of all ages. In this way, German researchers were able to overcome the limitations of individual works and explore the effects that human-to-human contact has on the psyche and health in general. The answer, as we were saying, is that these effects are real, and also very important: hugs and caresses, in fact, seem to significantly improve physical and mental well-being, reducing the perception of pain, anxiety, depression and stress. The effects emerge for everyone, but they would be even stronger in people who suffer from physical and mental problems (and therefore more in need of support), and in children.
Contact: yes, but which one?
“One of our key objectives in the study was to exploit the hundreds of studies available in the literature to identify which type of physical contact is most effective,” explains Christian Keysers, director of the Social Brain Lab at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Art and Sciences in Amsterdam . “What if we don't have a friend or partner on hand to hug us? Could physical contact from a stranger, or that of a car, still help? And how often should we receive it? The study clearly demonstrates that touch can actually be optimized, but that at the same time the most important aspects of doing so are not so obvious.”
Researchers, for example, found no differences based on the type of touch: a massage or a hug seem to have the same effectiveness. Even the degree of confidence with those who touch us does not seem important, because contact with a therapist or a friend would have the same effects. And even an inanimate object, like a robot or a weighted blanket, can offer real comfort from physical and psychological ailments. The frequency of contacts, however, is discriminating: the more they are repeated, the greater the physical and emotional benefits that are derived from them. The authors also found better health outcomes when the head, such as the face or scalp, was touched compared to other parts of the body. The next step – conclude the authors – will be to explore the effectiveness of different types of physical contact in larger and more controlled studies, also analyzing the differences that may exist in this regard between various cultures.