Life & Style

Hugging is good for your health, but most people are terrible at it

Hugging is physically and mentally beneficial, but a bad hug is worse than a limp handshake

'I accept some people do not like to be touched at all. Even though I go around kissing postmen and strangers from the council.' Photograph: Alamy/PA
'I accept some people do not like to be touched at all. Even though I go around kissing postmen and strangers from the council.' Photograph: Alamy/PA
Céire Sadlier
Wed Oct 16 2024 - 06:00

Hugging is good for your health. Proper hugging, that is.

I read once that it is only after 10 seconds of hugging that our bodies become flooded with endorphins that make us feel calm. There are reams of evidence that hugging is physically and mentally beneficial, releasing hormones that, as one medical journal explains, ease pain and torment.

For a power that we have literally at the end of our fingertips, most people are terrible at it. Hugs on average last, I would say, one second. And they’re not even really hugs in my book. They only involve arms, or one arm that barely encompasses the other person. An arm draped lazily and briefly with no other contact, or a back pat. It’s not on. If you’re not into hugging, no bother, a smile will do just fine. A bad hug is worse than the limp, cold handshake, the kind where someone just plops their feeble, creepy hand into yours like a dead fish and makes no effort to complete the shake with a squeeze. So if you open your arms to hug someone, then actually hug them.

[ I am not a huggy person. Don’t worry, my friend said. You can pretend to hug me ]

Really, we’re getting away with it lightly in terms of greeting loved ones here. I used to go to a French school in Hanoi in the 1990s. Every morning before school was a blur of bisous. Four in total. Normally just your good friends, but there might be a straggler there, an acquaintance, and it was good etiquette to smooch them as well. It was proper cheek to cheek to cheek to cheek to cheek to cheek to cheek until the bell rang. I loved it, making that close physical connection with people I was happy to see.

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I get an occasional cheek kiss these days. I notice it as a more favourable display of affection for the over-50s. Years ago, when I lived in Donnycarney, I had sellotaped a Christmas card with a fiver in it to the door for the postman. I scribbled a note that said please get yourself a pint on us (back when pints cost less than a fiver). I was embarrassed that it had only been a fiver. But after Christmas, I heard a knock on the door and opened it and the postman wordlessly leaned in past the threshold of the front door, kissed me on the cheek, then thanked me. When we sold our boomtime apartment to Dublin City Council, years and a €100,000 down the tube later, tears streamed down my cheeks as I let go of the incredible burden it had been to us. The man from the council, who I had never met before, wiped my tears away and gently kissed my cheek on Shaw Street as the Dart blundered above us and I placed the keys in his hand. I remember those kisses because they were so tender and understanding. For those kinds of kisses to matter you need time to stop for a minute and a good angle. Actual lip-to-skin contact and a hand gently holding the other cheek and the endorphins will fly.

It’s a bit of a risk, going in, even for an air kiss. My sister once went into a board meeting and thought the chairman who greeted her was going in for a kiss. He was aghast when she gave him a smacker and to cover up her mortification, she went around the board table to deliver an equally awkward greeting to every individual in the confused group. “We’ll get started now that you’ve finished kissing everyone,” he said to start off the meeting.

Some people know exactly how to hold you in a way that lets you know that they can feel the exact emotional turmoil that you are going through. Raising my head up from the depths of a blocked toilet in a football club dressing room in a public park, I held up the toilet brush and tried to wipe the sweat off my forehead with my sleeve without letting the contaminated rubber gloves touch my face. I was seething with the state of the place and fighting a sense of sadness that yet again it was the same small handful of people doing the dirty work. One of the other volunteers caught sight of me, took me into their arms in the toilet stall, and held me tightly, cupping the back of my head. Holding the toilet brush away from us, I couldn’t give much back except to nestle my head briefly into their neck, hoping they could feel my silent thanks for showing me without words that they knew just what I was feeling.

Some people know exactly how to hold you in a way that lets you know they can feel the exact emotional turmoil that you are going through. Photograph: Alamy/PA
Some people know exactly how to hold you in a way that lets you know they can feel the exact emotional turmoil that you are going through. Photograph: Alamy/PA

When we left Zambia after so many years and laughs with friends, we sat miserably on the veranda, almost nauseous at the thought of saying goodbye to the people who had been our lifelines. The tears tripped off my face like a water slide and spilled into my lap. “Right, enough of this,” my friend said and he slapped his knees, grabbed my face in his hands, and kissed me on the lips before disappearing into the dark. It was a big move, a brief and rare platonic kiss, perfectly reflecting how significant the parting was, knowing that we would never be as close as we were then. These are the types of affection that genuinely eased the torment at that time.

Think about how many people you know who are good at hugging. Not many I’ll bet. I am lucky that my husband’s hug is like pulling a big feather duvet around me and my children cling onto me like limpets, so I can get my hit of those good hug-fuelled hormones at home. But people rarely fully exploit their capability to fill a friend with happiness and calm with our arms. I am lucky that my best friend is roughly the same height and size and we hug belly to belly, toe to toe, fully wrapped up in each other – and never for less than 10 seconds. We could have a full conversation while hugging. If our hands knock off each other as we walk, we’ll just clasp our hands together as we amble along.

I fully accept that some people do not like to be touched at all. That’s grand. Even though I go around kissing postmen and strangers from the council, it isn’t everyone that I want to embrace. I’m great at giving a friendly wave. But if you’re going to try to side-hug me and you put your arm around my shoulder, don’t bother unless you’re going to pull me into you and let me put my hand across your belly and back and dip my head into your neck. If you’re coming at me head-on, expect me to clamp onto you until I have felt your chest rise and fall a couple of times with mine and the endorphins help us to soften into each other. Let’s hug properly, it’s good for our health.

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