Posted on 05/16/2021 3:56:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
SNIP
There are reasons so many humans feel comforted by hugging. Like a massage, it “involves stimulation and pressure receptors, and when that happens, the whole nervous system slows down and stress hormone is reduced,” says Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine.
Still, for some, hugs induce stress more than they relieve it. When Sam Zelinka, a federal-government research scientist based in Madison, Wis., gets a hug from anyone other than his wife or kids, he gets the same feeling as when a stranger stands too close to him. And while Zelinka, 38, isn’t about to “spray paint a T-shirt and march in the streets yelling about no hugs,” he’s not exactly looking forward to one from anyone but his parents.
“The people that hug me, I’m like, faced into their chest,” says Shantal Martin, a 27-year-old opera singer and influencer, who’s about 5-foot-2. When she left New York City in August to visit her family in Barbados, she found herself relieved at her relatives’ cautious distance in greeting her. “I was like, ‘This is great. I’m not being smothered by any of my aunts’ perfumes? Perfect.'”
Brooke Todd, a 24-year-old social worker in Stroudsburg, Pa., tends to tense up when someone moves to hug her, and she didn’t totally make sense of how much calmer her social life had become during the pandemic until last summer. “It took a few months, but suddenly I was like, ‘Oh, this is nice. I don’t look like a jerk all the time for not wanting to hug someone.'”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
The influencer “Karens” are a huge part of the problem.
Influencers are typically young people who make bank. I wish we had this back in the day and I knew what I know now, then. I’d be rich rich rich!!!!!
We have lots of huggers and hand shakers in the Baptist church. I’m OK with hand shaking, but definitely not a hugger. Didn’t really miss either one the past year.
Hand shaking has made a comeback now - not quite to previous levels but close. Hugging is just now coming back - unfortunately. I’m not afraid of germs, just more comfortable in my space bubble.
“But if a Playboy Playmate 2019-2021 of the Month wants to hug me, I’m good with it.”
Been married 35 years. I ain’t supposed to do stuff like that.
Some folk aren’t huggers. That’s cool. I am, and that’s cool too.
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