Is there a part of our body that is always in sight, these two restless companions with which we work, take care of ourselves and express ourselves?Hands, caressing and exercising this magical language that communicates and heals.
According to several studies in it? American Journal Psychiatry caresses are significant therapeutic gestures, and they can have more power over us than any drug. A hug, a hand that passes over our face or back allows the release of oxytocin. This hormone is able to induce the body to a state of relaxation, being an excellent defense against sadness and depression.
- These positive stimuli we receive from our peers are of importance that we must all consider: they determine our emotional maturity and even our evolution as individuals.
Let’s take an example: there are several articles about children without families whose misfortune forced them to grow up in orphanages, where poverty, low social care and marginalization then marked their maturity, they are children who stopped crying simply because they had lost hope. Children who sometimes reach adolescence develop neurosis, have great difficulty adjusting and suffer from personality problems, all of this is even more important when compared to those who had a childhood full of physical contact and caresses.
Carrying babies in your arms or maintaining skin-to-skin contact is critical to your emotional and social development, we must not forget this: gestures of affection, as well as hugs or the mere touch of a hand on us, provoke the liberation and expression of shared feelings, in addition, give confidence and show not only affection, but also submission.
Human contact has a clear calming effect, it is a simple balm with which one feels integrated and firmed, if a person does not receive contact can enter a process of sadness and isolation where it is very easy to fall into depression. And this applies to all ages: children who feel abandoned, couples with rare physical and emotional contact who lose the bond to failure, elderly people without significant stimuli around them that bring them affection or understanding . . . The examples are numerous and the basis remains the same: we become who we are through contact, affection, compassion and tenderness, the simple exercise of giving and receiving.
Sometimes animals even illustrate us with their attitudes, think of our pets, dogs and cats, who are still waiting for us to come home to be close to us and sit on our lap, force us to surrender them in some way, giving us their sincere affection without questions or explanations?as if the most important thing in your world was just that: feeling wanted, feeling a caress.