Hugging is good. But the question is, how many hugs do you need daily, and how long or how often should people hug?
Besides wanting to show affection, science says that hugging offers other benefits. Studies have confirmed that hugs are vital to human development.
So, if you aren’t giving or receiving enough hugs daily, you’re missing out big-time.
Below are the reasons you need eight hugs every day.
Ready? Here we go!
1. Boost Your Self-Esteem
Hugs can boost your self-esteem. When people lose a loved one or fail a job interview, hugs can heal them from these terrible events.
Getting multiple hugs from one or more persons can help restore your self-esteem and confidence level. It can repair one’s crushed self-esteem in no time.
Hugs can make someone crying to summon the courage to pick his or herself up.
An example of how essential hugs are to human development is what happens in our formative years.
As kids, our relations, siblings, and parents never seized to hug or touch us. This made us felt loved, cared for, and special then.
However, those tactile sensations and feelings of self-worth were ingrained in our nervous systems. They help shape our personality and become more visible in adulthood.
Most kids who were never shown love and attention grow up to become hostile. They lose their self-esteem and will to love.
As kids, we cannot dictate the number of hugs we should be getting daily. But as adults, we can. So, get as much as eight hugs daily.
2. Your Body Gains From Too Many Hugs:
There’s a saying that “too much of everything is bad.” Well, I agree! But when it comes to hugging, too much of it can cause no harm. It’s the other way around.
However, getting too many hugs, as many as eight hugs daily, isn’t all that matters. How long the hugs lasted matters a great deal.
When a hug lasts for 20 seconds or more, oxytocin, according to studies, is released. This hormone helps to strengthen the connection and bond between the huggers. But that’s not all.
Oxytocin has been shown to improve the immune system and cause a massive reduction in stress levels.
There’s a reason oxytocin is known as the “cuddle chemical” or “love hormone.”
In the human brain, oxytocin functions as an essential chemical messenger. Studies have confirmed that oxytocin can influence human behaviors, such as recognition, anxiety, sexual arousal, trust, and mother-child bond.
If you want to enjoy the benefits attached to improved oxytocin levels, hug for long periods and as many times as possible.
Hugging eight times a day isn’t a bad idea. Your body needs it and would benefit massively from it.
3. Hugging Encourages Muscle Relaxation And Reduces Tension In Your Body:
People complain of tension and muscle ache here and there! Sometimes I wonder how most people cope, given the nature of jobs and activities they do.
If you want to release tension in your body or relax your muscle, hug as many times as possible.
Just by hugging someone, you can release tension from your body. How? Hugging helps to boost blood circulation and encourage the release of endorphins.
Endorphins, according to studies, act on the brain’s opiate receptors. And as a result, they can lower your pain and enhance pleasure. All these make you feel well.
Besides hugging, other ways to boost endorphins includes having sex, laughing, eating chocolate, exercising, meditation, drinking wine, and others.
4. Hugging Is Free
Hugging benefits the body in several ways. On top of that, it is free. You don’t pay to receive or give hugs.
So why not hug as many times as possible? There’s no toxicity level in hugging. Instead, the more you hug, the higher the benefits.
Therefore, keep hugging. By the way, you have nothing to lose and more to gain when you share a hug with other people.
5. Teaches How To Receive And Give Love
Today, someone is downcast, and you’re there to hug and comfort that person. Who knows, tomorrow, you might be the one in need of a hug. That’s life for you.
Hugs teach us how we can give and receive love. And it does so in a unique way.
When a person is emotionally down, a simple hug can get him or her back up. Hugging also teaches us that love flows both ways. It teaches us to share love, no matter the condition.
When you hug someone, you also share in the love. You might heal from hurtful events in your life while hugging someone who’s downcast.
So don’t limit the number of hugs you give or receive daily. Make it a habit to hug eight times or more daily. Keep in mind that there are people in need of your hugs to heal from bad experiences.
When you come across a downcast friend, get close and hug that person.
Be that person that will make others feel good by sharing a hug today. Don’t worry; you won’t be left out. The comfort and love in a hug go both ways.
6. Hugs Offer Comfort And Lower Stress:
When a friend, spouse, or relative has a hectic day or is going through rough times, a simple hug can make all the difference in the person’s life.
Some people would rather start apportioning blame and reminding others of their mistakes, instead of comforting them.
Instead of blaming someone who’s downcast or dealing with their issues alone, comfort them. Blaming someone in such a state for his or her mistake would only worsen the problem.
Hugging is one of the best ways to show solidarity without saying a single word.
Hugging is powerful. It makes people feel confident and brave. When you have someone to hug you, you’ll have the strength to deal with life’s challenges
Scientists have proven that showing support for someone via hugging has a way of reducing stress. What’s more thrilling is that the stress of the hugger also gets reduced while comforting another.
In a study involving 20 heterosexual couples, each of the men received unpleasant electric shocks in their partners’ presence.
With each woman’s hand tightly tied to their partner’s, while the latter received the electric shock, researchers discovered reduced activity in the area of the women’s brain related to stress.
In the above study, researchers were also surprised to learn that the brain’s area related to the rewards of maternal behaviors showed increased activity.
Now think about it. What happens to these parts of the brain when we hug someone? Of course, you can expect to get a similar response.
7. Hugs Can Increase Your Happiness
As the saying goes, “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” What does medicine do? It heals and makes you well.
A hug is among the natural medicine for happiness. It helps boost our levels of the “cuddle chemical” called oxytocin.
Oxytocin relatively encourages happiness. It also helps with de-stressing your body.
Oxytocin is said to encourage a reduction in one’s blood pressure levels. It also reduces norepinephrine, the stress hormone.
This cuddle chemical called “oxytocin,” according to one study, offers massive positive effects in women, particularly those whose relationships are in great shape and receives frequent cuddling from their romantic better halves.
Besides hugging, touching, or sitting close to someone else can help boost one’s oxytocin levels. Oxytocin levels also increase when women cuddle their babies, not just their partners.
8. Hugs Reduce Fear Significantly:
Fear creeps in when we lose fate in our abilities. Someone might be intelligent. But just because he or she failed an exam twice, there’s this feeling that the same thing might happen in the third attempt.
It might not be an exam. It might be a series of past events that are creating fear in one’s mind. Nevertheless, people in such states need love. How should you show it? It’s via hugging.
Scientists have found that a simple touch can help lower anxiety in persons who have low self-esteem. Touching or hugging someone can prevent that person from isolating himself or herself.
If you need a firsthand experience on how a hug or touch can reduce fear, give a teddy bear to a kid who’s afraid of one. The child would scream and run away at first. But gradually, the fear would disappear, and they would become the best of friends.
In such a case, the child’s fear won’t disappear overnight. It would take a while and many physical contacts for it to happen.
So, hug as much as possible daily. Your body needs it more than you can ever imagine.
9. Hugging Helps You Communicate Your Feelings To Others:
There are many ways you can communicate with people. It can be verbal, hug, or via facial expression.
Hugging might be viewed as an odd means of communication. Most people are only aware of and communicate via verbal and facial expressions.
But scientists have confidently stated that we can communicate a ton of feelings via hugs.
In a study, scientists discovered that a stranger expressed a ton of feelings to other persons by touching different parts of their body.
Part of the emotions expressed includes love, fear, anger, gratitude, happiness, sympathy, and sadness.
Hugging is also ideal in good or bad situations. If a person comes out victorious in a competition, a hug will give them the feeling that you care. While if a person is downcast, a hug will assure them that you’re solidly behind them.
So hug is a communicative kind of touch, though very comforting and beneficial to our body.
10. Hugging Is Vital For Our Well-Being:
Hugging and physical touch can fight the feeling of loneliness. Loneliness is common among older people and prevalent in retirement homes.
A study conducted by a New York-based retirement home showed how massive the contribution from hugging or touching is to our well-being.
In the study carried out in the retirement home, a program known as “Embraceable You” was implemented. Cross-generational contacts and touch between staff members and residents were encouraged in the program.
The program’s main goal was to discover how hugging and touching contribute to improved well-being.
In the study, older people, who received three or more touches and hugs daily, had a surge in energy, were restful, felt less depressed, and could concentrate better. Reversed was the case for those who were less-hugged or touched.
11. Similar To Laughter And Meditation:
After making up with someone, a hug sometimes follows. The hug helps to connect the hearts of both individuals and settle the dispute at a deeper level.
That’s why hugs are similar to laughter and meditation. They teach and empower us to let go of grudges. They connect you with your feelings, breath, and heart, taking you off your circular thinking pattern.
12. Hugs Build Trust And Strengthen Bonds:
Many promising romantic relationships are shaky, and some have ended, not because the partners wanted it to happen that way, but because certain things eventually died in them. One of them is that they stopped communicating from the heart.
Hugs can build trust and strengthen bonds. When you hug your partner, both of you immediately connect at a deeper level. The bond binding the relationship is also enhanced.
So, if you want your relationship to flourish, stop complaining about your partner’s flaws. Learn to hug and let go. Continue feeding the bond that binds the relationship.
Keep in mind that physical contacts such as hugging and holding of hands are essential for the survival of any relationship. They help to strengthen bonds and build trust.
13. Hugs Elevate Mood:
Depression is a global pandemic. Several factors, including emotional abuse, are responsible for it. Depression is a feeling of loss, anger, and sadness.
How can we conquer depression? One simple way is by showing love. When you learn that someone is depressed, shower that person with love.
Hugging someone for an extended period can also help increase their serotonin levels. This, in turn, will elevate their mood and create a feeling of happiness.
Conclusion
Hugging is highly beneficial to the body. It can contribute massively to our physical and emotional well-being. There’s no overdose or toxicity level in hugging, so hug as many times as possible. On average, get as much as eight hugs daily.
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