Skin-to-Skin Success

Marc Lazard
touching.jpg

Scientists have established that skin-to-skin contact is not only calming and comforting, but is also linked to winning in professional sports, student participation in schools and positive doctor-patient interactions.  Touch is being studied as a complex language capable of communicating emotions as diverse as gratitude, disgust and love.

A team of researchers coded, analyzed and quantified the on-court theatrics of NBA players.  After correcting the data to avoid favoring the winning teams, which simply have more reasons to celebrate, they found that the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, two of the top teams in the league, are also the touchy-feeliest.

Touching stimulates the release of the “trust hormone” oxytocin and reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol.  It allows the prefrontal area of the brain to relax and perform better in problem-solving situations.

 

Image by littledan77 on Flickr Courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing.

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Comments

interviews?

Submitted by gillbard525 on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 18:31.

is this why a good hand shake is so important in an interview situation and in the past a bussiness a deal was finilasied withh a hand shake?

it was even important to affrican tribes who would put down their sheild from their left hand to shake an opposing tribesmans hand, as a sign of trust.

 don't get lost in heaven

That bit about communicating

Submitted by Brad on Fri, 03/05/2010 - 04:30.
That bit about communicating distinct emotions is quite profound and isn't quite fully revealed in the above sentences. The NY Times article reads: "In a series of experiments led by Matthew Hertenstein, a psychologist at DePauw University in Indiana, volunteers tried to communicate a list of emotions by touching a blindfolded stranger. The participants were able to communicate eight distinct emotions, from gratitude to disgust to love, some with about 70 percent accuracy." Now that seems quite interesting to me, because there doesn't seem to be a known physical explanation for perceiving the difference in disgust and gratitude if the modes of touch are ostensibly the same. Is there?

No wonder...

Submitted by Leon Night on Sun, 03/07/2010 - 10:37.

      My situation is such that I do not give, or receive touch on a regular basis anymore, so whenever I receive a touch by someone I'm hypersensitive to it. I seem to notice a certain, but subtle nuance to it. One aspect I hadn't considered until now is the intrinsic communication of emotions involved in touch. Now that I've become hypersensitive due to my relative isolation, I should be better able to distinguish the 'signal' from all of the 'noise' and see if I can read the signal. 

      In the future I'll have to pay more attention to the emotional state I'm in before I touch someone, and the emotion I receive in return. That'll be fun. Thanks for the head's up Brad! 

Physical Touch

Submitted by Dr.Fairchild on Fri, 03/05/2010 - 11:57.
Dr. Fairchild Physical touch follows psychological touch.

It's no wonder that our

Submitted by femalewarrior on Fri, 03/05/2010 - 15:42.
It's no wonder that our school age children are suffering immeasurably. It is becoming increasingly unlawful to physically touch children in school; no hugging, pats on the shoulder or any type of physical contact allowed or your job may be at risk. For many school aged children, the only love and emotional bonding that they receive is the love that is offered by their teachers but now that's no longer allowed. The Toltec Path - Living in Freedom!

psychic hands

Submitted by dancing_hands on Thu, 03/11/2010 - 14:19.

When I was in massage school, our instructor did a simple experiment to show us how much could be communicated through touch. He had us pair up and one student would be able to see a phrase written on the board and would have that in mind as they touched the other student's arms. Then the second student mentioned whatever images or feelings they perceived.

The phrase written on the board that I could see was "a knife cutting into an arm." My partner said that he could see blood! And a knife!! It was very impressive! When it was my turn, I sensed "desperation" coming from my partner. The phrase that was on the board was "a stripper." It blew me away, especially since desperation is what I always sensed in the room any time I was in a strip club!

We were taught in massage school to be very careful of what we were thinking about during a massage and to assume that the client may be able to sense anything on our minds.  Touch is much more powerful than we give it credit for...

 

....lend your hands to the dance of life....