I read here, the other day, in an article by a South Korean Zen Buddhist monk called Haemin Sunim, that hugs have health benefits. Here he is and here’s part of what he wrote:
Anthony Grant, a professor of psychology at the University of Sydney, presented research results showing that, in addition to reducing anxiety and loneliness, hugs lower our levels of the hormone cortisol, which gets secreted as a response to stress; this, in turn, strengthens immunity to pathogens and lowers blood pressure.
A brief, warm morning hug with someone we love provides us with a protective layer, insulating us from the stress of the day.
And according to Karen Grewen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, if a couple holds hands and hugs for 20 seconds before leaving the house in the morning, their stress index will be only half that of couples who do not do this. In other words, a brief, warm morning hug with someone we love provides us with a protective layer, insulating us from the stress of the day.
So, what’s stopping you?
And the thing I’d love to have invented in a parallel universe where time is infinite and all things are possible is Brooklyn’s new Center for Fiction:
Here readers, writers and curious folk can read, write, discuss and debate all things fiction. Wish I lived in New York.
We knew about the benefits of hugs in the 1970s. People went around with T shirts (in the US) that said “Hug Me”, “Free Hugs” etc. It’s nothing new, and nothing particularly Buddhist, but they are good for you. Particularly in today’s culture where any physical contact can and usually will be misconstrued many people, kids as well as adults, suffer from contact hunger.