A single hug, or better, a dozen a day, keeps the doctor away!

Suresh Nair
Sep 3, 2018 · 4 min read

In 2010, Kate Ogg gave birth to twins Jamie and Emily around the sixth month of her pregnancy. Emily survived but Jamie was not breathing. Doctors tried for 20 minutes to resuscitate him, was unsuccessful, and told Kate and her husband David that Jamie had died. They placed Jamie’s still body onto his mother’s chest, for saying final goodbyes.

After five minutes, Jamie began moving, and the movements became more pronounced. Doctors initially said that it is just reflexive action. After two hours of holding him close, his eyes opened, and then when the doctor was called, he could not believe, but had to certify that the child had pulled through.

Feel the presence of love, wrapped up within a hug. Robert M. Hensel

David and Kate were practicing ‘kangaroo care’. In poorer countries of the world, incubators may not be available for premature babies. An infant is held skin to skin to their father or mother, generating heat for the newborn just like the baby kangaroo in its mother’s pouch. This began in Bogota, Colombia, where up to 70% of premature babies died due to shortage of incubators. The mother then hugged them against their bodies.

Researchers found that babies born 10 weeks premature were going home within 24 hours. Moreover, these babies had more stable breathing, heart rate and ingested more oxygen. There was better survival rate and weight gain. The effect of the hug is more long lasting. A study done 20 years later revealed that these children earned more, have more organised sleep patterns and had more cerebral grey matter in the brain.

Hugs are powerful. From the time you were born until the day you die, hug or touch is an important factor for physical and emotional health. Infants who were deprived of touch grew up with cognitive and developmental delays, attachment disorders and greater risk of serious infections. As they grow up, they develop personality disorders that create difficulties in living in society.

When infants aren’t held, they can become sick, even die. It’s universally accepted that children need love, but at what age are people supposed to stop needing it? We never do. We need love in order to live happily, as much as we need oxygen in order to live at all.
― Marianne Williamson

Touch is the main language of communicating compassion. It benefits people of all ages, resulting in better immune systems, reduced stress, better sleep. It has no side effects, instead it recharges your energy. The frequency of touch varies from culture to culture. Psychologist Sidney Jourard did a study that measured touch between friends in various countries. People didn’t touch at all in England, while in the US, friends touched up to two times an hour. In France, on the contrary, friends touched up to 110 times an hour, while the figure for Peurto Rico reached up to 180 times in an hour.

Human beings are wired so that a hug makes us feel warm and fuzzy. The main molecule that triggers these feelings is oxytocin, released from your pituitary gland. Oxytocin, in turn, reduces blood pressure and cortisol, the stress hormone. Physical touch also leads to increase of other chemicals, notably dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine gives us that feel good feeling, as well as motivation. Low dopamine levels can lead to diseases like Parkinson and depression. Serotonin regulates feelings and flows when you feel significant or important. Low levels are associated with loneliness and depression.

We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth. Virginia Satir

Hugs do make you healthier, happier, more relaxed and even improves relationships. There is, however, one catch. It has to be a good hug, and one of the criteria for a good hug is that it has to last for at least 20 seconds. You don’t have to give that long hug every time you meet. You can go for the long, uplifting hugs for those special moments or when you can sense that your friends or family need that kind of deep embrace.

The Free Hugs campaign is a social movement where individuals offer hugs to strangers in public places. The hugs are supposed to be random acts of kindness, selfless acts done just to make others feel better.

I have been fortunate to experience the power of hugs. My daughter’s face is crestfallen with some deep pain and she is unable to find the words to express her agony. It doesn’t matter, because all it takes is a warm, loving hug to bring her to a state where she can handle the situation. The sheer joy at meeting a loving friend bubbles within and finds a gushing outlet with a tight embrace. The world needs to give and receive more hugs, more often. After all, what else can instantly enhance mood, give relief from pain, and put a spring in the step, as the simple gesture of responding to an outstretched hand.

Suresh Nair

Written by

Freelance Writer Editor Book Lover. Passionate about reading, inculcating gratitude, deep listening, mindfulness, relationships, amateur photographer and cook.

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