Being averse to hugs can also result from trauma, experts believe. “These experiences are all stored in the body, and they interfere with experiencing pleasure from touch… When trauma is stored in implicit memory in the body, people don't like to be hugged or touched.
Your stress levels can go up
When you go without your usual interactions—like hugging, cuddling, kissing, etc. —your brain also starts to release more of the stress hormone, which is called cortisol, Dr. Jackson says. As time goes on and you don't receive physical touch to relieve it, you will start to feel wound up.
First things first: You are absolutely within your rights to refuse to hug anyone, no one should ever make you feel obligated to do anything you aren't comfortable with. I am an advocate for open and honest communication.
Hugging helps lower our stress throughout the day.
Some researchers believe that hugging and other interpersonal touch can boost a hormone called oxytocin and also affect our endogenous opioid system.
Humans have hugged each other since thousands of years
The lovers are a pair of human skeletons that have been buried holding each other in a tight embrace (see Figure 1). They have been determined to be approximately 6000 years old, so we know for sure that people already hugged each other in Neolithic times.
Psychologists Recommend Daily Passionate Kisses for a Healthier Relationship. Phycologists say that to maintain a healthy relationship, you should kiss your partner at least once a day, though ideally three times or more.
“People who have higher levels of social anxiety, in general, may be hesitant to engage in affectionate touches with others, including friends.” And the fear of someone 'reaching out'—literally and figuratively—can make that discomfort even worse, she warns. There's also a cultural component to being hug avoidant.
Being loved arouses anxiety because it threatens long-standing psychological defenses formed early in life in relation to emotional pain and rejection, therefore leaving a person feeling more vulnerable.
Haphephobia is an intense, irrational fear of being touched. It is different from hypersensitivity, which is physical pain associated with being touched. People with haphephobia feel extreme distress over the thought of being touched. This anxiety can lead to physical symptoms like nausea, vomiting or panic attacks.
You can always say, in a firm but polite voice, “I'm just not a hugger!” You can also always say, in a self-deprecating tone, “You know me, cold as ice, hates hugs! Ha,” and then give a high-five, instead.
Shying away from hugs and kisses might just mean that your kid is sensitive to touch or values extra independence right now (perfectly normal).
By rejecting hugs – or showing discomfort with them – you are likely giving others a message that you want more emotional or physical distance. To the degree that this is accurate, you are moving your relationship in that direction.
If your children are not touched, they can get into a deficit state that can lead to negative mental health as well as show up as psychosomatic symptoms. These symptoms could include a headache, abdominal pain, anxiety, and sadness, to name a few.
What is the best friend theory? According to the theory, best friends don't hug because a healthy friendship means setting boundaries. If you're close enough to another person to let them know what feels comfortable for you, you likely have the foundation of a solid friendship.
Hugging increases serotonin, a neurotransmitter known as the "feel good" hormone that is produced and spread by neurons in the brain. Serotonin helps us feel happy, calm, and confident. When serotonin flows freely, we feel good about ourselves — and the opposite is true when this hormone is absent.
Not experiencing physical affection while growing up can lead to an underdeveloped oxytocin system, which leads to individuals not learning to appreciate cuddles, Darcia Narvaez, a professor of psychology at University of Notre Dame, explained to Time. Social anxiety, can also play a role in people being hug-avoidant.
Some mental health examples include depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, or even obsessive compulsive disorder. When someone is under distress due to an imbalance of emotions, then they are less like to show their partner affection.
Alexithymia (/əˌlɛksɪˈθaɪmiə/ ə-LEK-sih-THY-mee-ə), also called emotional blindness, is a neuropsychological phenomenon characterized by significant challenges in recognizing, expressing, and describing one's own or others' emotions.
As author and family therapist Virginia Satir once said, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth”.
Anxiety or depression
During and after a hug or a cuddle session, the body pumps out oxytocin, the “love hormone.” According to University of California San Diego scientists, low levels of this brain chemical is a contributor to both social anxiety and depression.
Crying while getting a hug or hugging someone is simply indicative of the attachment that we have with the person. Suddenly on hugging and coming in physical contact the emotional attachment gets intensified or is sparked which might have been hidden or suppressed or u discovered whole of the time.
TikTok users have lately been lauding the "6-second kiss rule," which is exactly what it sounds like: A ritual of kissing your partner for at least 6 seconds consecutively every day. "We are always eager to find shortcuts, even in dating and relationships," says Damona Hoffman, host of The Dates & Mates Podcast.
Lips may have evolved first for food and later applied themselves to speech, but in kissing they satisfy different kinds of hungers. In the body, a kiss triggers a cascade of neural messages and chemicals that transmit tactile sensations, sexual excitement, feelings of closeness, motivation and even euphoria.
Today, an average kiss lasts more than 12 seconds. In the 1980s, couples came up for air sooner than that: back then an average kiss lasted a mere 5.5 seconds.