Touch-deprived gang, I can only apologise for the quote I’m about to share: ”We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.”
The quip comes from Virginia Satir, a world-renowned family therapist. And it falls along similar lines to a 1995 study, which found “that four hugs per day was an antidote for depression, eight hugs per day would achieve mental stability and twelve hugs per day would achieve real psychological growth.”
A loving embrace sets your mental health, your immune system, and even your pain threshold up for success. And while it can be hard to quantify exactly how many hugs we need a day, the range seems to be minimum four, maximum – well, there is no maximum.
Here’s why hugging is so good for you – and how you can simulate its benefits if you don’t have a cuddle bud in your life.
Cuddling can be good for your heart, immune, and mental health
In a 2003 US study, one set of couples were shown romantic videos, held hands for ten minutes, and cuddled for 20 minutes. Another set sat in silence. The couples who held hands and hugged had lower blood pressure and heart rates than those who didn’t.
Another 2013 study found that hugging seemed to alleviate anxiety and low self-esteem. In fact, any touch at all seemed to help – “The experimenter handed the participants questionnaires to fill out; for some of the participants, she accompanied the questionnaire with a light, open-palmed touch on the participant’s shoulder blade that lasted about 1 second.”
“Interestingly, participants with low self-esteem who received the brief touch reported less death anxiety on the questionnaire than those who had not been touched,” the study revealed.
Yet ANOTHER study showed that hugging appeared to make a person less likely to become sick. And you could be less likely to become seriously ill when you do catch an illness, too.
OK, so... what do you want me to do about that?
If you have a partner, friends who enjoy being touchy-feely, or close family members, the instructions are a little simpler: ask for hugs! Hug! Get hugged! Yay!
However, if you’re one of the many people suffering from “touch starvation,” or a chronic lack of physical contact, reaping the benefits of a good snuggle could be harder.
Still, there are some ways of snagging those health-boosting happy chemicals hugging provides, partner or not. These include:
- Hugging a pet if you have one
- Hugging a soft toy – remember that anxiety/self-esteem study? They found that a teddy was helpful
- Hugging yourself (yes, this works)
- Using a weighted blanket
- Booking a massage or getting your hair washed (yep, really)
BRB, nabbing my beloved weighted blanket...
Help and support:
- Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
- Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI - this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
- Beat, Adult Helpline: 0808 801 0677 and Youthline: 0808 801 0711 or email help@beateatingdisorders.org.uk (adults) fyp@beateatingdisorders.org.uk (youth support)
- CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
- The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk
- Rethink Mental Illness offers practical help through its advice line which can be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). More info can be found on rethink.org