What is touch hunger?

As COVID-19 skipped through countries across the world, governments told their citizens to stay away from each other to help prevent the spread of the virus.

Social distancing as it's now commonly referred to has helped contain COVID, but, according to psychologists, it has left our bodies crying out for physical contact.

"Touch Starvation" or "skin hunger" according to a paper published by the Texas Medical Center is a phenomenon many of us are quietly going through. Even after COVID is now fading into memory. Whether it's a hug, a high-five, a kiss or something more physical, one of the legacies appears to be  we haven't had it, and it's making us feel blue.

“Human beings are wired to touch and be touched. When a child is born, that is how they bond with their mother—through touch,” said Asim Shah, M.D., professor and executive vice chair of the Menninger Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. “Our wiring system has touch everywhere, so it’s difficult for us not to think about physical contact.”

Why touch is so important? 🤔

Being touched (in a nice way, not being shoved or pushed around on a busy train) has been found to have all kinds of different benefits. Most commonly, it helps lower our cortisol levels, which, if left unchecked, can cause anger, depression, anxiety, and insomnia. Your body is in solitary confinement, and it's not having a good time. This can have a profound effect not just on yourself, but society too.

I'm a hugger, not a fighter 🥊

In 1999, a study looked at how much teenagers in France and the US hugged, stroked and kissed one another. The results, unsurprisingly found that the French were far more tactile than the Americans, who fidgeted and cracked their knuckles more as well as showing more "aggressive verbal and physical behaviour". "High-touch cultures," the authors of the study concluded, "have relatively low rates of violence, and low-touch cultures have extremely high rates of youth and adult violence."

If you're lucky enough to have people either in your "support bubble" or have found yourself in a corona free zone, go and hug someone. It's good for them, and it's good for you.

Ok, where can I learn more? 📚

• Why touch is so important for our emotional development.
• Berkeley University has a great article from someone whose job looks at the "Science of Touch" (I kid you not) and what they found was touch was our "language of compassion and empathy."
• During Romania's tragic experiment in trying to grow its population by banning abortion, thousands of children were abandoned in already stretched orphanages. The New Yorker explores how children were literally brought back to life by the power of touch.