Like the rest of us, scientists have long suspected the healing capacity of a good hug. Unlike the rest of us, they' ve gone about trying to prove it.
" Laboratory studies suggest that things like hugs help us feel safer. They can also make us less sensitive to physical pain and less reactive when we' re faced with threatening experiences, " says Michael Murphy. He is a research professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Texas Tec h University. " This lab work has shown that hugs and other touch behaviors are related to stress. The more stress we have, the more our heart rates and blood pressure go up. At this time, hugs and other forms of personal touch may give off all sorts of feel-good chemicals, so that stress can be reduced."
" There' s a lot that we still need to learn, and there' s a lot we don' t know, " Murphy says. " However, what seems to be rising up is that hugs, as well as other forms of loving and gentle touch, are really powerful. They remind people that they' re cared about and that they have someone in their corner."
" We expect touch. When we were born, we were placed in our mothers' arms almost immediately. In that first year of our life, we spend a lot of time being held by other people. And as we grow up, we seek out hugs and touch as a way of connection. I think what we have lost in the past few years are these really easy opportunities to be reminded of connection."
While he was at Carnegie Mellon, Murphy was the lead author of a hug-centered 2018 article in the scientific journal PLOS One. In a series of interviews with 404 adults over a two-week period, the researchers found that receiving a hug is associated with the attenuation of negative emotions that occur on days with interpersonal conflicts. That is to say, generally, hugs help to reduce the negative impacts that personal conflicts may cause in our daily lives.