Hugging is good medicine. Actually, touching is good medicine and quite necessary to existence and happiness, might I add. Partly because pressure receptors in the skin lower stress hormones. Partly because oxytocin, the "cuddle hormones", enhance trust and attachment.
Look at these monks getting their daily dose!
Photo by Raising Ecstasy
Touch is the first sense we acquire at birth. As human beings, we come equipped to send and receive emotional signals via touch alone. So much can be said with touch. Using variations in smoothness and pressure, we can often communicate more efficiently and more precisely than with our voice or facial expressions. Touch is also more versatile: it can communicate multiple positive emotions including joy, love, gratitude... Ultimately, using touch as a communication tool leaves us with more positive interactions and deeper connection with others.
Yet, many of us are imprisoned in a touch-phobic environment, leaving us starved for human contact. Break out of jail, demand your daily dose of touch and be the official oxytocin provider for everyone you love, and everyone else.
1) Follow Lily Verlaine's steps and identify what will make you "Ready to be Received"
- Then grow the number daily until you reach or pass 12 hugs a day; notice the impact on your mood and happiness
2) Over the weekend, give 4 hugs a day
4) Self-explore with a hand mirror, love your wondrous creature
- Practice presence through touch
- Use something you have never tried before to do so
- Cover 3 or more of your erogenous zones
6) If with a special someone, ask your lover to lay down, not move, and explore their body
- Practice presence through touch
- Use something you have never tried before to do so
- Cover 3 or more of their erogenous zones
7) If with a special someone, lay down, don't move, and let your lover explore your body
