Researchers Explain Effects of Hugs and Kisses on a Relationship

Researchers find that hugging, holding hands, snuggling, and kissing produce something more than just magical moments. They can help to lose weight, boost health, low blood pressure, fight off disease, and many more.

A new study led by a student of the Binghamton University, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships especially takes a look at the impacts of non-sexual intimate touch like holding hands and hugging instead of the actions lead to sex.

Attachment style alludes to human social bonds and exists on a range that avoidant people favor increasingly relational separation, while anxious people look for more noteworthy closeness. This style develops in adolescence, yet it can change after some time and differ with the person being referred to.

Samantha Wagner is a doctoral student in psychology at Binghamton University. In this study, she says that everything relies upon how a person feels open, close, and secure with an individual who is affected by numerous factors.

In this study, researchers analyzed more than 180 couples that were consisted of husbands and wives while the researchers excluded same-sex couples. Because the investigation protocol included hormonal sampling while the people who were on hormonal therapy, pregnant, breastfeeding mothers, and postmenopausal were also barred.

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The researchers took their interviews separately and asked them about their routine love and amount of touch in a relationship. Also, they were questioned about their relationship satisfaction.

They find that avoidant people favored less touch and anxious people prefer more touch in a relationship. What they discovered was more nuanced.

Even the partners with avoidant attachment styles were more satisfied with their partner’s touch because of more routine love in them. The anxious husbands were not satisfied with the touch they got with low levels of physical love while the anxious wives were satisfied, who may rather decide to request the missing affection.

For men, more significant levels of routine love are related to a satisfying relationship means touch is essential for relationship satisfaction. For women, the absence of touch is correlated with relationship dissatisfaction. So, the presence of touch is positive and the absence of touch is negative.

Wagner stressed that the study is mainly focused on healthy and consensual touch, not on abuse or manipulation. She pointed out that touch holds various implications for individuals; somebody with an autism spectrum disorder might be overpowered by tactile sensitivity while somebody with a history of trauma might encounter touch as loath.

Wagner, by her confirmation, a hugger and has for some time been captivated by the mending prospects of touch. She wrote a thesis as a subjective survey of the advantages and uses of touch over the life expectancy. But questions kept on emerging; Why do a few people appreciate or enjoy touch more than others?

As the coronavirus pandemic proceeds, couples might need to consider adding more love to lessen the stress as long as their partners are responsive and willing.

Wagner said, “Feel free to give some extra snugs on the couch. There’s plenty of evidence that suggests touch as a way to decrease stress.”

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She also noticed that that the coronavirus pandemic may prompt touch deprivation as social distancing keeps people apart from each other. Consider an example of healthcare workers. When they return home they stay away from their family members to keep them safe and quarantine themselves from their loved ones.

Here Wagner advises people, “I think we should all hold the loved ones we can a little closer and be thoughtful of the struggles that others might be having because they can’t do just that. If anything is true for me, a hug has become even more precious than it was before.”