Why Touch is More Important Than Ever
Randi G. Fine remind us, “No other forms of communication is as universally understood as touch. The compassionate touch of a hand or a reassuring hug, can take away our fears, soothe our anxieties, and fill the emptiness of being lonely.” In her book, Get a Faith Lift, Nell Mahoney tells the experience of Dr. Norman Neaves, who was the pastor of a church in Oklahoma City. Dr. Neaves received a letter from a parishioner who wanted to express her deep appreciation for one regular part of the worship service. She wrote: “I live alone…I don’t have any friends, I am without a job. I guess you would say I am very shy and not good at relating to people. You may find this difficult to believe but each Sunday when we hold hands and pray together the Lord’s prayer, it is the only time in the week when I touch someone or they touch me. I feel connected. I hope you won’t ever stop doing that.” This story illustrates beautifully the healing power of touch. For those of us who experience a lot of touch, we underestimate how much touch impacts our emotional health.
Whether we shake hands, give a warm hug, sympathetically pat a friend on the back, or greet a friend with a kiss on the cheek, we have developed physical love languages that can be healing for us and those we touch. But today we are often more connected to our cell phones, computers, and televisions than we are to nature, animals, ourselves, and one another. I worry that the decline in human touch is affecting our mental health. Despite the benefits of technology, it is important to preserve human touch, in order for us to feel connected to ourselves, one another, and the world around us.
I worked for many years at nursing homes visiting patients who experienced a profound deficit of touch and when I would ask my patients if I could hold their hand, almost 100% of them would say yes and grip my hand tightly. It was evident these patients were in need of human connection and I remember one patient telling me, “Can you stay for a little while longer and just hold my hand.” Touch is the last of our senses to go when we are at the end of our lives and so if you have a loved one who is very sick or dying, it is important to touch them. It will be healing to both you and them to experience the gift of touch. A hospice doctor once explained to me how holding hands with someone can stabilize a person’s blood pressure and how when we hold hands it creates oxytocin, the feel good chemical in the brain, which increases our mood. But you don’t have to be sick or dying to reap the rewards of human touch. It will make us feel better no matter our age or stage in life!
When I think back to my childhood and youth, I remember hugs and touch being a big part of my life. But now because of both liability and our tech-saturated culture, getting a hug during the day seems more rare. Recently, I met a lady at a conference, who has started a group called Chattanooga Hugs. Their mission is to help Chattanooga become a kinder and more loving city, and they see free hugs as a means to achieve this. And science would support their theory, because children who receive less touch early on in the lives have a greater propensity to be violent as adults, than children who were hugged often. For more info on Chattanooga Hugs check out: http://www.chattanoogahugs.com/
I teach yoga classes and sometimes at the end or beginning of a class, I will ask permission to give a forehead massage and I have had many yoga students describe to me how healing it is and some have even said that yoga is the only place they are touched during the day. Obviously, it is very important to ask someone before we touch them or hug them, but our growing preoccupation with technology over touch, combined with the restrictions on physical contact in our schools and workplaces, may lead us to become a culture devoid of human connection and compassion.
I would encourage you to ask yourself the question, “Am I getting enough touch in my life?” These are some of the places in my life where I experience touch:
- Massage (Human Touch)
- Hugs (Human Touch)
- Holding Hands (Human Touch)
- Prayer (Divine Touch)
- Gardening (Earth Touch)
- Hiking (Earth Touch)
- Holding My Cat (Animal Touch)
- Hand to Heart (Self-Touch)
Richard Louv wrote a book called, Last Child in the Woods: : Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, to highlight how detrimental it is for kids to be disconnected from nature. But currently we are not only estranged from nature, but also from ourselves and our fellow humanity. Make sure to create some spaces today to experience the healing power of touch. We can experience touch ourselves through simply putting our hands to our heart and listening to the beating drum inside of us, we can offer it to our fellow humanity through hugs, we can experience the sacred touch of the divine by taking time for meditation, we can go outside and plant a flower and experience the gift of nature, or we can touch our pet and experience the healing power of animals. In the age of disconnection let’s try to stay connected!
Let’s keep in touch :),
Christy
