When we hug another person, our body automatically releases the cuddle hormone oxytocin. Hugs can reduce our stress levels and blood pressure and have a positive effect on our physical health.
A recent study has now shown that regular hugs can also have a long-term positive effect on our psychological well-being.
For the study published in the journal "Journal of Nonverbal Behavior", the research team led by Julian Packheiser from the Social Brain Lab at the Dutch Institute for Neurosciences in Amsterdam accompanied 94 adult test subjects for a week.
The participants filled out an online survey every day, asking about the number of hugs, mood and general life satisfaction.
The most important finding: hugging makes us happier. Respondents who gave hugs more often also had generally more positive moods and felt less lonely. So far, so to be expected.
The fact that people who have a tendency towards neuroticism - i.e. a tendency to feelings such as fear, sadness and anger - hug fewer people than others is also not surprising at first.
A little more surprising is who benefits most from hugs. For couples, friendly touches have little effect on overall life satisfaction, while singles benefit significantly from hugs when it comes to their psychological well-being.
Sebastian Ocklenburg, co-author of the study, writes in a guest article on Psychology Today: "There is generally more positive touch in couples, so a hug may not matter much more."
The scientists also found out a few soft facts about hugs. There's a big range in numbers. One of the participants did not have a single hug within a week, another opened his arms to other people a whopping 150 times.
On average, each participant gave:in four hugs a day. On the weekends, people loved to hug each other the most, while on Mondays and Tuesdays they hugged the least people.
The study uncovers many previously suspected connections between general life satisfaction and human closeness. Due to the limited experimental framework, however, further studies are needed to be able to clearly determine the correlation, as co-author Ocklenburg writes: "It could be that hugs lead to a more positive mood - but it could also be that people who generally in a better mood, more likely to be hugged by others.”
The fact is that hugs are good for us. A study by the American Psychosomatic Society found that just 20 seconds in someone's arms is enough to lower our heart rate and blood pressure. And this is best done with "medium pressure", as researchers at Japan's Toho University found out. According to science, this is the recipe for the perfect hug.
Most of the time, however, it is enough to simply enjoy the closeness of a loved one. But what if no one is available for a hug? We can also increase our oxytocin levels, for example, by eating slowly and with pleasure - or by hugging ourselves.
This may sound bizarre at first, but as soon as we hug ourselves, we also release the cuddle hormone. And we're not the only species doing this. A study by the University of Chongqing in China showed that isolated monkeys hug themselves for comfort.
Source: Study by Julian Packheiser and Co., Chongqing University study in China, American Psychosomatic Society study
