Positive touch nurtures and nourishes our very being and is essential to our emotional and physical health. Yet sadly there is currently so much negative talk and fear around touch, we are becoming an increasingly touch starved society.

We need to talk about touch, all touch, not just ‘bad’ touch. We need to understand how essential touch is, whatever our age, and we need to find ways of bringing it safely back into society.

Let’s begin with a story…

It starts way back in the 13th Century, when there ruled an extremely inquisitive emperor, Emperor Frederick IV. Frederick loved to make up experiments and, believing that the Romans were the superior race, devised an experiment to prove it. Thinking that if left to our own devices, humans would naturally speak Latin, thus proving that Romas were indeed superior. Frederick collected hundreds of infants and instructed that these babies were not to be touched, cuddled or talked to, just fed and clothed. Sadly his experiment didn’t quite go to plan. Tragically all those infants failed to thrive, and died before they ever got to speak.

It turns out that ‘touch’ is the one sense that babies can’t live without.

Sadly there are similar more modern day stories of babies who, deprived of touch, are at best growing up with huge developmental damage and an aggressive personality, and at worst are dying!

Following the second world war, in one UK orphanage there was reportedly a lady named Anna who used to pick up the babies that were failing to thrive, sit with them in a rocking chair and as she rocked she would gently rub the babies up and down their backs. These babies then began to thrive.

Since then the research has gathered, and is still being gathered.

In 1986 Tiffany Fields published studies on the benefits of touch for pre-term babies. Preemies who were massaged for 15 minutes, 3 times a day for 10 days:

• gained 47% more weight
• went home a week earlier than babies who were routinely handled

Likewise, full term babies who were massaged for 15 minutes a day:

• cried less
• were more alert
• gained weight faster
• were more socially engaged
• had lower levels of stress hormones

Other studies show that the more positive touch a child receives the higher their self esteem. And the higher a child’s self esteem the more they achieve academically.

We can all recognise that soothing touch reduces stress and promotes relaxation. What we don’t all know is that the more we are positively touched / hugged the more antibodies we produce and the stronger our immune system becomes.

Whether giving or receiving touch, touch stimulates the production of an extraordinary hormone and chemical messenger called oxytocin.

Oxytocin travels through our blood and also through the airways and it:

• helps prevent atherosclerosis
• supports vasodilatation – a single hug has been shown to bring blood pressure down in 20 seconds
• reduces inflammation caused by bacterial infections
• promotes the growth of new blood vessels needed for wound repair and growth
• plays a part in the production of heart and brain cells
• increases the production of serotonin, our happy hormone, which also opens and closes the gateway to pain and is important for sleep
• creates a sense of calmness, compassion, empathy and connection with others
• is the molecule of ‘trust’ (‘The Moral Molecule’ by Paul Zak)

It is thus not surprising that the Mundugumor tribe, said to be the most aggressive tribe in the world, also ‘touch’ the least and have the shortest life span.

And most importantly of all “Without touch, people feel depressed, unhealthy and deprived”

(‘Lost Connections’ by Johan Hari)

The need for touch

We are biologically hard wired with the need:

• to belong to a community
• to physically and emotionally benefit from positive touch whatever our age. We have evolved with specific touch receptors, C fibres, that respond to the slow stroke of connecting touch.

In one famous experiment an anaesthetist visited a number of patients with similar symptoms, about to undergo the same operation. For half of the patients, he provided the usual brief information and check that all was well. For the other half he spent 5 – 10 minutes longer with them and made physical contact, holding their hands whilst talking to them.

After the operation, the patients who had received the caring touch asked for only half the amount of post-operative pain relief that the others requested, and they were sufficiently well recovered to leave the hospital 3 days earlier than the untouched patients.

Studies have shown that if praise is given in conjunction with touch, 85% of the time it is ‘heard’ as opposed to just 15% of the time if it is given purely verbally.

Yet crazily doctors are still being warned against touching their patients, and teachers forbidden – so scared are we of a recrimination.

“Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.”

Margaret Atwood

The power of touch

For the last 28 years as a massage therapist and someone who just believes in the power of touch, when appropriate and invited, I have incorporated touch / massage into my work with people of all ages including pre-term babies, pre-school children, school children, teenagers, teenagers who have been excluded from school, adults and the elderly, those who are well and those who are sick, those who are rich, and those who are homeless.

Loving touch does not discriminate and speaks a common language.

Positive touch is never ‘done to’ a person, rather ‘with’ a person, and I treasure the many amazing, moving stories I have heard, and touching experiences I have had whilst connecting with another being through touch.

I will end with one ‘touching’ story about an old lady who was sitting rocking and looking at the floor. As I took her hands and gently held them she raised her eyes to mine. It was as if a veil lifted and as her eyes filled with light she whispered, oh so quietly, “Am I still alive?” “Yes” I said “You are very much alive and your eyes are sparkling bright.” “Oh good” she replied “I do want to be alive, only sometimes I just wonder.”

To touch and be touched is a part of being and feeling truly alive. We do not and should not have to be a massage therapist to offer a person loving, holding, connecting touch.

“It is hard to touch a heart without being willing to touch a person.”

Curtis Tyrone Jones

“Touch has a memory.”

Keats

Finding a safe way of bringing touch back into our society is a serious and important conversation that we need to have.

Words: Helen Prosper

If you would like to learn more about Helen and the therapies she offers please visit her website or facebook page