Have we lost contact with each other?

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Do you flinch when someone reaches out to touch you? Are you eager for a spontaneous hug or pat on the back of encouragement?

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If you feel out of touch, you are not alone. Eighteen months after the pandemic and we’ve dropped contact, from handshakes and hugs to patting, rubbing, squeezing, and caressing. Casual physical contact continues to arouse suspicion.

And with the dark winter days ahead and the lingering virus, who knows the aftermath of this no-touch crisis, a true global experiment in contact deprivation.

Even with vaccines, there is no mandatory end to non-contact life in sight, and people can experience contact starvation. “Human beings are specially designed to desire touch and be touched,” says registered psychotherapist Joshua Peters, and we’re starving for this form of communication, but touch has become synonymous with fear and disease in the pandemic.

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“We are faced with the ultimate internal conflict: our instincts push us to touch and connect, while our logical mind reminds us of the risks associated with COVID-19. If we choose to follow our logical mind, we starve for human contact. If we choose to follow our instincts, we increase our risk of contracting COVID-19, ”says Peters, clinical supervisor at the Center for Interpersonal Relationships (cfir.ca).

There is an increase in people in therapy describing their need to be touched and hugged, he says. “Being hugged is one of the first ways we communicate, feel loved, and connect with others … touch reminds us that we are kind and safe.”

But the pandemic puts us through a type of solitary confinement, Peters says, and deprivation of physical contact can make people more irritable or depressed. “Public health restrictions are essential to our greater health, but they have certainly taken a price.”

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Touch turns us on, but according to Dr. Tiffany Fielding, we’ve actually been losing touch for quite some time. “It appears that the pandemic has only exacerbated the contact deprivation that was already happening.”

Fielding has been researching therapeutic touch for decades: “We studied touch on airport gates before the pandemic and people only touched 4% of the time. They mostly used cell phones, and they didn’t talk, they just texted and moved, ”says Fielding, founder and director of the Tactile Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine.

One of his studies shows that in the US, couples in a café touched once every 30 minutes. In Paris, it was 20 times every 30 minutes.

It’s a touchstone for good health and wellness though – we need a daily dose of contact, Feilding says. “We know from our research that moving the skin is critical to health.” Stimulating the skin actually slows down the heart rate and the release of stress hormones like cortisol.

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“When you lower cortisol, you can save the natural killer cells that protect bacterial, viral and cancer cells. Ironically, during a viral pandemic we need more natural killer cells and natural killer cell activity, but with less contact, that’s not happening, ”says Fielding.

Practices that stimulate the skin such as massage and exercise can help us cope better and find calm in times of chaos. In a 2020 BBC and Wellcome Collection survey, respondents used the words “comforting,” “warm,” and “love” to describe touch. He found that as the pandemic progressed, even those who lived with other people began to crave more contact.

Until now, few understood the power of touch and most took it for granted. “It is quiet but powerful. Human contact is a fundamental and powerful part of our existence, and it is an integral part of our body’s ability to heal and regenerate, ”says Jim Corcoran, pioneer in the health and wellness industry and founder of You are. Ana’s Spa in Grafton, Ontario. “When we deprive ourselves of positive human contact, there are many negative side effects cascading down to our health.” Corcoran is seeing overwhelming demand for its holistic services, particularly body massages, head massages, and facials.

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It has seen touch take a back seat in modern life: the rise of busy lifestyles and technology have replaced healthy skin contact. Cell phones are held instead of hands. In addition, “we have seen western medicine move away from human contact: there is latex, paper or stainless steel between you and the caregiver,” says Corcoran.

And lately, separating people further is a “pandemic of denunciation, judgment, division and shame” that damages resilience and health, he says. “The government has not considered the impact of the current blockades and restrictions on people’s health, or on companies. It is going to be a very long and painful recovery road for all of us. “

Peters adds that when the pandemic subsides, we will have to prioritize physical contact as an important component of well-being. It will take time to decondition our response to fear of touch, but “our deeply human yearning to touch and be touched will surely resurface with time and patience.”