Hands On

Loving, intentional touch does more than de-stress. Its imperative to ones emotional and cognitive growth and, in the early stages of life, ones very survival.

- Sonia Zadro

Who doesn’t love a big warm hug, a long luxurious massage or some intimate time with a partner? But beyond making you feel good, how important is it to experience touch in your everyday life? The answer is that appropriate and loving touch is not only important to your physical, mental and emotional development but is essential to life itself.

Your skin is the largest organ in your body and your sense of touch develops in the womb before all the other senses. Touch is the main way infants learn about their environment and bond with other people. This sense of touch never turns off, it never takes a break and it keeps on going long after your other senses have failed in old age.

The research on the benefits of touch through massage is now fairly widespread. Massage has been found to calm the nervous system, lower blood pressure and stress hormones, and reduce pain and depression. In a summary of research on massage, Professor Marc Cohen from RMIT University found it assists with nausea, low back pain, chronic diseases, anxiety, depression, post-natal depression, fibromyalgia, insomnia and dementia, for starters. But most people are unaware of just how far beyond this the benefits of touch extend.

The influence of touch begins even before birth when a foetus begins receiving tactile signals through the amniotic fluid from the vibration of its mother’s heartbeat. After birth, according to attachment theory, if a baby or child does not receive enough appropriate touch, there’s a lack of bonding, resulting in a lack of trust and problems in forming attachments later as adults. Yet the need for touch in infancy goes even deeper than this.