Masters of Health Magazine February 2024 | Page 86

Oxytocin can also help people withstand stress, increase emotional empathy, and enhance communication among individuals.  Perhaps, hugging or cuddling is a healthier way to lower blood pressure.  Hugging and touch also reduces the release of the stress hormone cortisol.  Imagine the reduction in all the ill health and mental symptoms if doctors prescribed touch therapies instead of all the stress-related drugs with all their nasty side effects.

There are many different types of massage therapies.  Each of them has their merit.  When humans lovingly touch each other, it produces feelings of affection, gratitude, sympathy, or love.  Holding hands, kissing, caressing, and sexual activity has many benefits.  It reduces stress hormones.  Touch can also arouse emotions which in turn, makes the body secrete hormones and fluids in preparation for sex.

Cuddling is more affectionate than hugging.  It is a form of physical intimacy in which two people hold one another for an extended period.  Cuddling can be with family members, friends, or lovers.  Cuddling is two people lying down together in an intimate manner.  Cuddling also makes the body release oxytocin, which has numerous beneficial effects.  Perhaps cuddling should be prescribed for people with high blood pressure, depression, and anxiety.  Could this competition (cuddling vs drugs) be why various medications cause a sense of touch and sex drive loss? 

Seniors are particularly affected because many have lost their partners.  Also, many are heavily medicated, which numbs the senses even more.  If you are taking medication, find natural remedies for whatever ails you, and ask your doctor or health practitioner to help wean you off medications.  All drugs have long-term side effects that weaken or destroy your senses.

Loneliness in isolation also numbs the senses.  A report from Harvard researchers wrote that “…a culprit in a whole slew of problems, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, heart disease, and domestic abuse—problems appeared more than ever during the pandemic.”

Cuddle therapy and sessions are becoming more prevalent.  But can interpersonal touch be therapeutic for everybody? Anik Debrot, PhD, a psychotherapist and a professor at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, tells very well that current research says yes—with conditions. 

“There’s a lot of evidence showing a link between touch and well-being.  Physical touch can lower stress and blood pressure and foster positive emotions, but usually when it comes from someone familiar.”