Touching and being touched: much more than a biological need

Touching and being touched by the people we love is more than a biological need.. It is part of our language, it is nurturing emotional needs and validating affection, extinguishing fears and giving ourselves oxytocin. Letting us lack all of this will not only generate skin hunger, but will also cause stress to rise and even physical discomfort to increase.

The skin is our largest sensory organ. Touch, for its part, is the first sense that we acquire along with smell. We also know that practices such as skin-to-skin contact with babies (especially premature babies) favor the somatosensory scaffolding of their brains, thus optimizing their cognitive, perceptual, and social development, as well as their physical development.

Human beings, like animals, need that contact, and not only in our earliest stages. For example, something that has been seen in many nursing homes is that the elderly who receive hugs, caresses and physical contact inscribed in gestures of affection improve their attention and communication processes. In addition, they feel less tired and even their joint pain is reduced.

Our brain needs that type of contact (always offered by people who are significant to us) to find that emotional balance with which, simply, promote psychological calm. Now, science is discovering many more processes associated with touch that we were unaware of until not long ago. Let’s see more data below.

Touch and be touched, more than a necessity

People need to touch and be touched to communicate affection, to help, to receive or give comfort… We have known all this for a long time and science has shown us empirically over the years. Now, there is an even more interesting aspect.

Matthew Hertenstein, a psychologist at the University of DePauw University, Indiana (United States) was able to see through a study that we are even capable of perceiving emotions through touchThe experiment was done in 2009. A group of 248 blindfolded people received touches and caresses from strangers for 5 seconds. As striking as it may seem, 75% of these men and women were able to identify worry, fear, sadness, anger, sympathy or even the happiness of the one who was touching it.

This work acquired such significance that it was later carried out again at the University of Miami. Dr. Tiffany Field, director of the Tactile Research Institute at the University of Miami, came to the following conclusions.

We have the ability to send, receive and interpret emotional signals through touch.

A physiotherapist uses his hands not only as a work tool, through them he can also read concerns, tensions, adverse emotions intensifying contractures. In turn, these expert hands not only relieve pain and improve mobility. They also have the wonderful ability to transmit well-being to us.

The authors of this study emphasize the need to delve deeper into a broader sample of the population. In fact, it has begun to be carried out in countries such as Spain and the United Kingdom. However, with this first step the following hypothesis is already established:

The need to touch and be touched goes beyond offering affection. Evolutionarily, we have also acquired the ability to read the emotional state of others through touch. Something like this allows us, above all, being able to confer relief through a hug or a caress to those who suffer.

The primary somatosensory cortex and its involvement in touch

Until not long ago, neurologists thought thatThe somatosensory cortex allowed us to decode qualities as basic as knowing if a surface is smooth or rough.if its temperature is high or cold… Now, as we advance in our knowledge of the sense of touch linked to emotions, we discover more data.

This area of ​​our brain is also linked to social and emotional components.. For example, it helps us perceive tension or worry in our children and seek their proximity to hug them. Through this contact, we offer you comfort, security and our affection.

Michael Spezio, psychologist at Scripps College and author of this study, points out that touching is not just a physical experience, it is an emotional experience and a type of language. It is a mechanism where we can also understand the other and respond to them without the need for words.

The language of touch, a power within our reach

It is often said that We never receive as many sensory experiences through touch as when we are children.. Likewise, cultural factors and the way we have been educated facilitate or hinder our ability to confer this type of communication through caresses and hugs in adulthood.

It is even known that players on sports teams use touch (a touch, a pat, a hug) to support each other at a given moment. These are moments where something more intense than a word is needed. And works. Recovering and promoting this type of language is therefore essential.

Because touching and being touched goes beyond a biological need. It is a social foundation that allows us to improve our emotional universe.

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