The headline read, “Science confirms hugs can ease pain, anxiety, and depression” – something we kind of already knew. Now we super-know this. It comes courtesy of a European team led by Julian Packheiser at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. Packheiser and collaborators collected studies that have looked at the therapeutic benefits of a hug and meta-analysed them – the equivalent of a statistical juicer that squeezes out all the good stuff.
In statistical terms, hugs have a “large” effect on reducing stress-related hormone levels, and medium-to-strong effects for pain reduction, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and weight gain in newborns. Mum and dad’s hugs are best for babies.
I’ve seen some of these studies before, so I’m not particularly surprised that hugs are good for you, but I was surprised by a few things. First, the authors dug up more than 200 studies. That’s an awful lot of hugs. Researchers are clearly very interested in snuggles.
Second, you get similar effects regardless of who the hugger is – someone we know, or a helping professional. The other thing that surprised me was that some of these studies don’t even involve people-produced hugs, instead opting for robot hugs. And robot hugs produce almost as good improvements in physical aspects of health, but relatively weak-to-moderate mental wellbeing effects. If we ever go into lockdown again, I’m investing in hugging robot manufacture.
I joke, but prolonged deprivation of physical human contact has been argued to lead to “touch starvation” or “touch hunger”, which cause increased stress, anxiety and depression. It’s no surprise, then, that Packheiser reports that people experiencing mental distress experience more positive effects from touch – perhaps because they get fewer hugs.
Because Packheiser and colleagues are all about the facts, they don’t go into quite as much detail about why a cuddle is good for you. The answer to the why of it involves several components. Touch triggers physiological and psychological responses, and they’re kind of interrelated.
When someone touches us, our nerves signal our parasympathetic nervous system; the part of our extended brain that acts like one side of a scale, pushing down on the other “fight, flight, freeze” half of the system.
The parasympathetic nervous system lets go of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Hugging also triggers the release of the hormone oxytocin, which gives us warm fuzzies of trust, as well as serotonin and dopamine, which play a role in almost all of our behaviour. These make us feel good. Women get more bang for buck when it comes to the stress-reduction benefits of a hug.
Hugging, and touch in general, make us feel psychologically connected to other people. People feel less lonely after a hug, and those of us in relationships feel closer to our partners. I should qualify that last comment – regular physical affection is associated with happier and lower stress relationships. In fact, the meta-analysis says the most positive effects came from studies with more hugging sessions.
If you think back to the slightly different robots versus persons effects of hugs, this kind of makes sense. A robot hug still gets the nerve endings tingling and sending signals up to the ol’ parasympathetic, but I’m not sure I would feel “closer” to that robot.
In health contexts, like Covid or other quarantine conditions, it wasn’t just patients who missed out on human touch; the people who provide mental and medical care also suffered.
One of the ways we communicate reassurance and connection is through a hand on the shoulder, and being unable to do that most human of things made professionals feel distressed.
And the authors also note that touch is good for animals, particularly lambs, cats and fish, so don’t neglect your pets.
