Ever wondered why holding hands, a hug, or cuddles feels so good?

Yes, human touch is more effective and magical than we ever thought of. You can see any human emotions, they are directly or indirectly related to it, and they enhance it noticeably. We all have seen the famous Free hugs movement all over the social media and the attention it got.

“Some moments can only be cured with a big squishy grandma hug.”
― Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing

To promote the human touch and the kindness attached to it, the free hugs movement was launched. You must have heard about the free hugs movement. Yes, the Free Hugs Campaign is a social movement involving individuals who offer hugs to strangers in public places. The hugs are meant to be random acts of kindness—selfless acts performed just to make others feel better. International Free Hugs Month is celebrated on the first Saturday of July and continues until August first.

The campaign in its present form was started in 2004 by an Australian man known only by the pseudonym “Juan Mann”. The campaign became famous internationally in 2006 as the result of a music video on YouTube by the Australian band Sick Puppies, which has been viewed over 78 million times as of April 16, 2018.

Reference: Wikipedia

Apart from hugs, the simple human touch has many advantages, and positive impact on the other person. Some of the fine examples are listed down below.

Building trust and positivity. Not getting too much into the technical(hormone) details, human touch is very important for building trust and relationship. It can be a simple handshake, friendly hug or tap at the back when an achievement is made. This can contribute to an expansion of trust among individuals during social situations. You must have noticed, when your boss taps your back for achieving something (be it very small) it really feels awesome, and it encourages us for working harder and achieving bigger.

Reduces stress and anxiety. A study on women shows that more frequent partner hugs and higher oxytocin levels are linked to lower blood pressure and heart rate. Well, in real life it works a lot, whenever we are very stressed, a simple hug from our partner or friend can reduce the tension to a large extent. You will feel that at least someone is there to care for you when you are low.

“Nothing eases suffering like human touch.”
― Bobby Fischer, Chess Meets of the Century

Touching your partner romantically. Affectionate touching like Cuddling, Backrubs, Hand holding, Hugs and others are known to increase the love and intensity in the relationship. In common words, we can say that it helps us keep up that spark in the relationship. I am not saying that physical intimacy would be the only key of relationship, but of course one of the most important one.

It helps us to get more emotionally/romantically connected to someone. A tight hug from the partner, holding hand of the one you love and walking a mile, seems to be the world’s best remedy of each issue that we have in our life. Resolving conflicts seems easy when people are physically very close and are connected to each other.

“It is such an easy thing to do—to touch another in sympathy—but it is such a hard thing too.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Revolving Door of Life

Massage, spa and various other such therapies proves the point very well, that we all need human touch to relax and be stress free for some time, which is bothering us a lot in our daily life. We often go for a spa or a massage therapy, where we can just find the relaxation arena and escape from the daily stress.

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”
— Charles Dickens in Love Online: Emotions on the Internet

Here’s what Timisha (Blogger) says:
Physical touch is very important to me. It’s comforting, healing, and a way to show and receive affection. The intimacy of relationship enhances greatly with physical touch. I do not think I could survive an intimate relationship without it.

You can read her blogs here.
Social media handles: Facebook || Pinterest

As we all know, how powerful and magical human touch is, like everything, there is a negative touch as well. There are lot of cases in which touch is perceived negatively, and it may even lead to criminal charges. People like me, who are part of corporate companies, we all know there are hundreds of courses, training and eLearning that we must complete every year to determine, which is, and which is not harassment. I can literally write 5k+ words blog on that, but I don’t want my readers to sleep, the way I sleep during these classes ?

In his book Bad for Us (2004), John Portmann tells of a stripper who did not allow men to touch her, and emphasized that the divide between watching and touching made a world of moral difference to her: “It wasn’t the act itself; it was a matter of setting up boundaries somewhere, so that one didn’t feel like one’s entire self was oozing away.”

To conclude the post, we all are stuck in time fighting with life, work, career, challenges… a simple hug can make someone happy ?

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