Another alert student passed along an article with a very romantic theme–holding hands.
For today’s college students, hand-holding in public is signals a very significant relationship, and in some respects is considered more intimate than kissing at a party. James Coan of the University of Virginia will be publishing a study soon in Psychological Science that shows that when people hold hands, their brains work less hard to cope with stress.
One of the nice things about my husband of 34 years is that he likes to hold hands. We take daily walks, holding hands. On several occasions, our younger neighbors have commented on this practice and say that they have tried to imitate it in their own relationships. It’s somewhat odd to realize that you’re old enough to be “cute,” but if it helps other people, that’s really special.
9 Comments
emhughes · November 7, 2006 at 8:01 pm
I have heard of the stress reducing benefits of hand holding before, is it also true that it works to reduce blood pressure? What a great, healthy coping strategy!
nelsayed · November 11, 2006 at 7:45 pm
I have also heard about the stress reducing effects of touch. I had a bio teacher that said oxytocin is released in response to touch. He called it the “love hormone.” I was wondering if this has anything to do with the reduction of stress.
PinkShades05 · November 13, 2006 at 12:55 am
I haven’t heard of this, but it’s a pretty cool idea. I will have to try it with my boyfriend during finals week and see if it works. I will let you know if I feel a lot better about my finals or if I earn better grades than usual 😉
LeaRoltsch · December 2, 2006 at 3:42 pm
I have heard before that physical contact with animals and humans helps to relieve stress. For me I know that this strategy works. I always feel better when my boyfriend holds my hand or hugs me and luckily he likes to do it!
jclaud · December 3, 2006 at 1:16 pm
This is really interesting information. I already knew that support and human contact are very important to a person’s overall sense of wellbeing, but it is fascinating that science has allowed us to learn why this occurs. It also makes me think about how important it must be for women going through labor to have that physical touch or holding hands from either a husband or some other loved one.
jejabe13 · December 8, 2006 at 1:07 am
I wonder if the study paired couples that existed outside of the laboratory, that is, were the couples that were holding hands romantically involved or were they just two participants who were randomly paired to do so? Does this benefit apply to romantically involved couples, or would holding hands within a platonic relationship, say mother and daughter, have similar effects? I’m wondering if it’s simply the proximity of someone loved and familiar that offers such effects or if it siimply is just the act of holding hands.
MunkeyChowFan · December 8, 2006 at 10:53 pm
My girlfriend would love to see this. We hold hands in public and I can definitely see the validity of these findings. It must have some correlation to the “contact comfort” work done with infant rhesus monkeys. Besides the soothing effect of physical contact, my girlfriend has the most positive attitude of anyone I’ve ever met, which comes in handy during times of stress.
alleyj · March 10, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I had never heard of this idea but when I think about my own life I definitely agree with it. Hand holding seems to do wonders for me, whenever I’m in a bad mood or just in need of some attention- holding onto my boyfriend’s hand seems to make everything so much better.
reggie · March 13, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Everytime I would hold hands with my girl I would always get that weird feeling. It’s not a bad thing, because it definitely feels good. I don’t want to seem all girly but it does make me kind of feel like a softy, haha. I realize as humans, touch is very important in our lives. It has been with us since the dawn of time. Touch is sort of like a nature and not nurture thing, we are not influenced to know that touch makes us feel better. We all grew up with it, even when we first came out of mommies. Why did we cry…because we wanted our mommies to hold us. It’s amazing how something so simple can mean so much.
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