{"id":3717,"date":"2024-04-08T15:00:06","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T15:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=3717"},"modified":"2024-04-08T15:26:08","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T15:26:08","slug":"large-scientific-review-confirms-the-benefits-of-physical-touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=3717","title":{"rendered":"Large Scientific Review Confirms the Benefits of Physical Touch"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Premature babies especially benefited from skin-to-skin contact, and women tended to respond more strongly than men did.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

A hug, a handshake, a therapeutic massage. A newborn lying on a mother\u2019s bare chest.<\/p>\n

Physical touch can buoy well-being and lessen pain, depression and anxiety, according to a large new analysis of published research released on Monday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.<\/p>\n

Researchers from Germany and the Netherlands systematically reviewed years of research on touch, strokes, hugs and rubs. They also combined data from 137 studies, which included nearly 13,000 adults, children and infants. Each study compared individuals who had been physically touched in some way over the course of an experiment \u2014 or had touched an object like a fuzzy stuffed toy \u2014 to similar individuals who had not.<\/p>\n

For example, one study<\/a> showed that daily 20-minute gentle massages for six weeks in older people with dementia decreased aggressiveness and reduced the levels of a stress marker in the blood. Another<\/a> found that massages boosted the mood of breast cancer patients. One study<\/a> even showed that healthy young adults who caressed a robotic baby seal were happier, and felt less pain from a mild heat stimulus, than those who read an article about an astronomer.<\/p>\n

Positive effects were particularly noticeable in premature babies, who \u201cmassively improve\u201d with skin-to-skin contact, said Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Michon, a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and one of the study\u2019s authors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

\u201cThere have been a lot of claims that touch is good, touch is healthy, touch is something that we all need,\u201d said Rebecca Boehme, a neuroscientist at Linkoping University in Sweden, who reviewed the study for the journal. \u201cBut actually, nobody had looked at it from this broad, bird\u2019s eye perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

The analysis revealed some interesting and sometimes mysterious patterns. Among adults, sick people showed greater mental health benefits from touch than healthy people did. Who was doing the touching \u2014 a familiar person or a health care worker \u2014 didn\u2019t matter. But the source of the touch did matter to newborns.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Premature babies especially benefited from skin-to-skin contact, and women tended to respond more strongly than men did.A hug, a handshake, a therapeutic massage. A newborn lying on a mother\u2019s bare chest.Physical touch can buoy well-being and lessen pain, depression and anxiety, according to a large new analysis of published research released on Monday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.Researchers from Germany and the Netherlands systematically reviewed years of research on touch, strokes, hugs and rubs. They also combined data from 137 studies, which included nearly 13,000 adults, children and infants. Each study compared individuals who had been physically touched in some way over the course of an experiment \u2014 or had touched an object like a fuzzy stuffed toy \u2014 to similar individuals who had not.For example, one study showed that daily 20-minute gentle massages for six weeks in older people with dementia decreased aggressiveness and reduced the levels of a stress marker in the blood. Another found that massages boosted the mood of breast cancer patients. One study even showed that healthy young adults who caressed a robotic baby seal were happier, and felt less pain from a mild heat stimulus, than those who read an article about an astronomer.Positive effects were particularly noticeable in premature babies, who \u201cmassively improve\u201d with skin-to-skin contact, said Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Michon, a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and one of the study\u2019s authors.\u201cThere have been a lot of claims that touch is good, touch is healthy, touch is something that we all need,\u201d said Rebecca Boehme, a neuroscientist at Linkoping University in Sweden, who reviewed the study for the journal. \u201cBut actually, nobody had looked at it from this broad, bird\u2019s eye perspective.\u201dThe analysis revealed some interesting and sometimes mysterious patterns. Among adults, sick people showed greater mental health benefits from touch than healthy people did. Who was doing the touching \u2014 a familiar person or a health care worker \u2014 didn\u2019t matter. But the source of the touch did matter to newborns.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3719,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3717"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3720,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3717\/revisions\/3720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}