If you enjoy going to museums and galleries, you’ve probably come across many signs that say “Please do not touch.” Sometimes the wording is slightly different. In Seattle: “Please look but don’t touch.” In Chicago: “Touching is strictly prohibited.” In New York City: “Keep your grubby hands to yourself.”
Despite these signs, there’s a lot of touching going on. The excuses include:
"No one is watching."
"What's the harm in a little touching?"
"My hands aren't grubby."
Humans love to touch, and we especially love to touch things we’re not supposed to touch. This is known, of course, as inappropriate touching.
Inanimate objects in museums and galleries are sometimes victims of inappropriate touching, but so are many humans, which is why you might spot a woman on the subway wearing a T-shirt that says “You may look but don’t touch.”
It’s important to say “no” to inappropriate touching. But it’s also important to say “yes” to appropriate touching.
Just ask researchers at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and Germany’s University Hospital Essen. They’ll tell you what they found from conducting a large-scale analysis of hundreds of individual studies: touch is good.
But how good is it? Well, according to a report in Science Daily, the researchers found that “touch substantially improves both physical and mental wellbeing.” It can help reduce pain, depression and stress in adults and is particularly beneficial to people with physical or mental health problems.
The researchers found that frequency is more important than duration. Getting a daily hug from a friend can have a bigger impact on your health than a weekly massage from a therapist. Yes, daily hugs are good. Hourly hugs are even better, but not if your friend decides to ghost you. (If you’re lucky, you’ll eventually receive an explanation: “Sorry, I didn’t realize how hard it is to keep in touch.”)
A back rub or other touch from a healthcare worker in a hospital can be just as effective as a touch from a loved one, the researchers found. But unless touch therapy is part of your treatment plan, don’t pester your nurse for a little touching. You might experience a touch of anger.
What about touch from a non-human? The researchers found that a touch-robot or weighted blanket can be just as effective as human touch in improving physical wellbeing. But for mental wellbeing, human touch is vital, which suggests the “importance for an emotional component associated with the touch," said Frédéric Michon, one of the study authors.
This begs the question: what about animals? My dog, Lulu, loves to be touched, and she also loves to touch humans, sometimes quite appropriately.
"It would be useful to see whether an animal's or pet's touch could improve wellbeing, and inversely if they also benefit from it, but unfortunately there simply aren't enough studies, or properly controlled ones, for us to draw any general conclusions on these topics," Michon said.
Not enough “properly controlled” studies on animal-human touch? My wife might disagree. In our household alone, she has observed the benefits of touching between a “properly controlled” animal (Lulu) and a “properly controlled” human (me).
One of the most important findings is that touch significantly benefits newborn babies, especially when parents are doing the touching.
"This finding could be impactful," said Julian Packheiser, another study author. "Death rates due to premature births are high in some countries and the knowledge that a baby benefits more from the touch of their own parent offers another easily implementable form of support for the baby's health."
Easily implementable: touching and holding your baby.
Easily lamentable: ignoring your baby.
If you’re a parent of a newborn baby, please set aside plenty of time for touching.
Touching the baby monitor doesn’t count.
It wasn't until I became a parent that I understood just how important touching was. I love holding my daughter's tiny hand.
Very touching. . .