We Need Touch to Regulate Our Anxiety
Another COVID lockdown with newly enforced quarantine requirements has put many of us back to working remotely. The ensuing social isolation has again highlighted the profoundly human need for embodied contact and touch to regulate our nervous system.
In a London hotel room a few years ago, I came across an essay by filmmaker Sebastian Junger (Junger, The never-ending war; the bonds of battle 2015), where he discusses his experiences as a journalist in an outpost in Korengal Valley in Afghanistan in 2007. He describes war from a neurological perspective stating that while no one wants war, the majority of veterans long to go back because combat gives soldiers an intense experience of connection. (Junger, Why veterans miss war TEDSalon NY2014) According to Junger the military brotherhood creates a sense of safety beyond friendship and personal likes and dislikes. He describes, how every night, while listening to machine gun fire surrounding the isolated compound, he felt profoundly secure, because whenever he moved, he touched another body. His PTSD symptoms only kicked in, once he returned home to the alienation of modern society.
In this context Junger mentions the controversial study by Harlow in the 1950s, where baby rhesus monkeys were isolated from their mothers and given the choice between two surrogates. One of these, made of metal wire held a bottle with food, the other was made of terrycloth. The baby monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother even though they would dehydrate and starve; their hunger for contact being more urgent than that for food.
Touch regulates an infant’s nervous system. Bolby’s attachment theory suggests that touch from sensitive caregivers allows infants to feel safe and secure. (Bolby 1973) Junger observed that those societies, who put infants into nurseries, tend to fill their babies’ cots with stuffed toys, creating quite a similar effect to that of Harlow’s rhesus monkeys. Sure enough, the following day my eyes were drawn to hundreds of London shops selling soft toys.
Many clients I have worked with, who as children were exposed to the bombings in WWII, did not suffer long-lasting post-traumatic stress from these events as long as they were securely held within their families; huddled together in bomb shelters, for instance. This experience differs dramatically from those who were sent away to board with foster families in the country, where they were physically safe, but felt unloved and abandoned.
I certainly do support our governments’ efforts to quarantine citizens and lock down entire states in order to control the pandemic’s outbreak. However, I am also aware of the devastating psychological impact such isolation and avoidance of touch has on individuals. As we are lacking our foremost way of downregulating fear and stress, which happens through human connection and touch, our anxiety levels during the devastating pandemic have dramatically escalated.
Depression, violence, addictions and controlling behaviours have increased. Fear and distrust may fuel rage against authority figures and seem to foster conspiracy theories. Some even speculating that our governments intend to kill their entire population with the COVID vaccines. We react like insecurely attached infants fearing for our lives.
The poor worldwide sleep huddled together and become dangerously exposed to mental illness, if they lose this safety net. In the Black Forest, where I lived for close to 20 years, the old houses still had these huge 1.8 (6 foot) cubic meter ovens, which could take a tree trunk for heating – and inspire the fairy tale fantasy of pushing a witch into it. In the past, the whole household would sleep on top of such a Kunz during the icy winter months to keep warm. For the same reason, even medieval kings would share their large beds with family, knights and servants. I certainly recall cosy childhood holidays, where all the cousins would share a couple of beds; or how lifesaving it felt to slip into my mother’s bed, when I had nightmares. Western society regards such closeness these days as unhygienic, if not dangerous. The implicit safety such co-sleeping provides, however, is evident.
Research on touch is still in its infancy. The complexity of its impact on our nervous system is stunning. Research so far includes intriguing results such as holding a warm cup of tea feels more socially connecting than a cold drink, or that patrons tipped higher, when the waitress lightly touched their arm, (Wilhelm, et al. 2001, 58) while high fives and team huddles increased the performance of basketball teams. (Kraus, Huang and & Keltner 2010)
There are certainly different cultural, professional and personal paradigms around the perceived appropriateness of touch. Ritualized greetings may determine if we kiss others, hug them, shake hands, touch elbows or keep our distance. However, even those who are touch phobic still benefit from the psychological effect of human closeness.
The emotional impact of interpersonal touch is ingrained in our biology. Indeed, there is some direct evidence that in mammalian species, touch triggers the release of oxytocin, a hormone that decreases stress related responses. (Tjew A. Sin and Koole 2013) The lack of touch during the COVID epidemic has highlighted the need for interpersonal, embodied connection in an already touch-deprived society.
Crucianelli from the Brain, Body and Self Lab in Stockholm and London researched oxytocin as the “glue of the senses”. The results showed that oxytocin was instrumental in multisensory integration, which in turn is at the root of our sense of body ownership. This is something most people take for granted, but without touch, and without the biochemical reaction it ensues, we do not come into being. “Through deteriorating social relationships, we also detach from ourselves.” (Crucianelli 2021)
Touch therapies such as working with clay or bilateral self-massages with finger paints are my area of expertise. (Elbrecht 2013; 2018) For others it might be receiving a massage, cuddling a pet or holding a teddy bear to find release. Oxytocin, the stress-reducing touch hormone, is after all the ‘love hormone’ we all need to feel safe and alive.
Bibliography
Bolby, J. 1973. Attachment and loss: Vol 2. New York: Basic Books.
Crucianelli, L. 2021. The need to touch; the language of touch ninds our minds and bodies to the broader social world. What happens when touch becomes taboo? Accessed 2 9, 2021. https://.co/essays/touch-is-a-language-we-cannot-afford-to-forget.
Elbrecht, Cornelia. 2018. Healing trauma with guided drawing; a sensorimotor art therapy approach to bilateral body mapping. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
—. 2013. Trauma healing at the clay field, a sensorimotor art therapy approach. London/Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley.
Junger, Sebastian. 2015. "The never-ending war; the bonds of battle." Vanity Fair, June.
—. TEDSalon NY2014. "Why veterans miss war." ted.com. https://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_junger_why_veterans_miss_war?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare.
Kraus, M. W., C. Huang, and D. & Keltner. 2010. "Tactile communication, cooperation and performance: An ethological study of the NBA." Emotion, 745 - 749.
Tjew A. Sin, Mandy, and Sander Koole. 2013. "That human touch that means so much: Exploring the tactile dimension of social life." The Inquisitive Mind, 2: Issue 17.
Wilhelm, S. J., A. S. Kochar, W. T. Roth, and J. J. & Gross. 2001, 58. "Social anxiety and response to touch. Incongruence between self-evaluative and psychological reactions." Biological Psychology, 91 - 111.
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