The Health Benefits of Physical Touch

I would recount you an incident my friend told me, that after their marriage, the most enjoyable time of the day was when in the evening, her husband used to rub her feet, while talking about the whole day. The pressure of his hands exerted on her skin, and the warmth of his palms made her feel ecstatic. She used to look forward to the evenings to get the joyous massage and indicated to her husband by wiggling her toes, that it is time for it again.

Though she expressed in grief that due to extra work and his meetings and appointments now they do not spend such leisure time together, so there is a decrease in the foot massaging activity also. According to her she has started having temper tantrums, and irritability and crankiness, which might have been caused by the absence of those foot massages.

It might sound stupid to you that emotions can be affected due to the absence of a regular physical touch, but it actually is true that social contact and touching play a very important role in our mental and physical well-being.

Lets consider some examples:

- studies show that the skin-to-skin contact made between mother and her baby has proved beneficial for the baby’s health thus the infants get aware f this relationship from the very beginning, when even they cannot open their eyes properly. It also plays a vital role in mother’s health to place the baby with the mother so as to assure skin-to-skin contact, at the post labor stages.

- A study was conducted in Korea where under the care of an orphanage, some infants were given the extra stimulation for 5 days a week, and twice daily. The stimulation included the three forms, auditory, with a female voice, tactile, massaging of the infants, and visual, i.e., eye-to-eye contact. After the given time, they were compared to another group of infants that did not receive stimulation.

The results showed a remarkable difference in the growth of the infants who received stimulation. Their body weight, body length, and circumference of head were better and larger than those who were given the regular care, without stimulation. Also, the infants who received stimulation were less prone to the illnesses.

- The physical touch, massaging, or skin-to-skin contact have their effects not only on a stressed mind, but have proved to be very helpful in overall health conditions, like coping up in pain and such more situations.

- There is another instance when the participants of “therapeutic touch study programme” experienced a considerable decrease in pain, as well as an improved life style.

- For the patients of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, the treatment usually recommended is that relating to drugs. But a study done recently, shows that the behavioral symptoms of dementia, like restlessness, impatience, irritability, intolerance, wandering for things of the past, waking up and walking in the middle of night, all can be reduced with the help of touch therapy. The study also showed that such results could be obtained without doing intensive therapy. They provided it for 5-7 minutes, for 3 days, twice daily.

You cannot ignore the importance of physical touch therapy. You can experience the effects by applying it in your relations near to you, and the result you will get will show you its importance.

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