Who Needs A Hug?

"Who Needs A Hug?" By?Marcia Byalick

Hugs can be like an infusion of emotional medicine when we're sad and a burst of celebration when we're happy

I've shaken hands hundreds of times in my life but I've given thousands of hugs. Never having the kind of work life that demanded suits and high heeIs, hugging has always been my go-to greeting.

And lately I've been dreaming about them. Hello hugs. Goodbye hugs. Making-up hugs. Congratulatory hugs. Gratitude hugs. And no-reason-at-all hugs.?

Joni Mitchell had it right when she sang, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?"

In these disorienting times, I feel like I'm holding all this emotion in my body with nowhere to put it. There was actually a study where healthy adults were monitored for how often they hugged.?

Then they were quarantined and intentionally infected with a cold virus. Those who received more hugs had less severe disease. Counterintuitive, no? That those who receive more hugs are somehow more protected from infection??

Wholehearted hugs?are like the opposite of drinking too much?coffee. They turn down anxiety and melt away uncertainty.?Maybe if CVS dispensed comforting hugs through the years along?with flu shots and shingle shots and vaccines and COVID tests, we'd all be better fortified to handle these challenging times.?

Oxytocin levels peak in dog owners whenever they hug their pets.?And hugs are the centerpiece of every Hallmark commercial, especially the ones of returning soldiers surprising their families.

I remember stories of the damage done to the hardly touched babies in Romanian orphanages. And the touch-deprived elderly in hospitals and nursing homes over these last two years.?

I think about Ukraine?which barred most men between 18 and 60 from leaving. And millions of their mothers and wives and children struggling to survive these hard times, unhugged. We walk around knowing that physical affection feels good; we tend to forget its true value can be priceless.

Reprinted with permission from?Next Avenue.