Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

{Nothing gives comfort quite like a warm hug but that isn’t the only thing you get from a hug. Besides helping you feel close and connected to people you care about, a hug a day just might keep the doctor away.}

Below are 6 reasons why you should get a hug everyday

{{1. Hugging makes you feel good }}

Oxytocin is released when we hug someone and this makes us feel warm and good inside. Oxytocin also heal feelings of loneliness, isolation, and anger.

{{2. Hugging strengthens our immune system }}

According to a 2015 study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, people who hug regularly are less likely less likely to come down with a cold. The researchers also found that people who hug frequently have less severe cold symptoms compared to those who don’t.

“Hugging protects people who are under stress from the increased risk for colds [that’s] usually associated with stress,” study author Sheldon Cohen, a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania is quoted on US News. Hugging “is a marker of intimacy and helps generate the feeling that others are there to help in the face of adversity.”

{{3. Hugging lowers blood pressure }}

Hugging also lowers your blood pressure. According to a report in NPR, pressure receptors called “Pacinian corpuscles” which are found under the skin get activated when you hug. The Pacinian corpuscles then sends signals to the vagus nerve, an area of the brain that is responsible for (among many things) lowering blood pressure.

{{4. Hugging helps build trust }}

You build trust and a sense of safety when you hug your partner regularly. This helps with open and honest communication.

{{5. Hugging is good for the heart }}

Researchers have also found hugging to be good for the heart. According to researchers from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, people who don’t hug their partner developed a quickened heart rate of 10 beats per minute compared to the five beats per minute among those who hug their partner regularly.

{{6. Hugging helps you relieve stress }}

According to a report on NPR, hugging results in a decrease of the stress hormone cortisol.

“Having this friendly touch, just somebody simply touching our arm and holding it, buffers the physiological consequences of this stressful response,” says Matt Hertenstein, an experimental psychologist at DePauw University in Indiana as quoted on NPR.

Source:Elcrema

{A low resting heart rate, which has been linked to aggression and violent offending, has been implicated in stalking behavior in males, according to a recent study.}

“Low Resting Heart Rate and Stalking Perpetration,” by Danielle Boisvert, Jessica Wells, Todd Armstrong, Richard H. Lewis, Matthias Woeckener and Matt Nobles, is the first study to incorporate the biological factor of resting heart rate in assessing stalking behaviors and is among a growing body of literature linking autonomic nervous system functions to antisocial behavior.

The study found that males with a low resting heart rate were at significantly greater risk of engaging in stalking behavior. Based on arousal theory, those with low levels of arousal are less fearful, more likely to seek opportunities to pursue victims to feel stimulated, and are more likely to exhibit impulsive behaviors.

“Participants whose heart rate was one standard deviation below the mean or lower had nearly three times the odds of having engaged in stalking as compared with all other participants, suggesting that low resting heart rate is associated with increased prevalence of stalking behavior,” said Boisvert. “Overall, our findings suggest that while heart rate is generally found to be associated with aggression and antisocial behavior across the sexes, these associations may be sex specific when discussing stalking perpetration.”

Recent estimates suggest that 16.2 percent of women and 5.2 percent of men in the U.S. have been stalked at some point in their lifetime, which represents 20 million women and six million men. Stalking can lead to significant psychological, social and economic effects for victims, costing an estimated $342 million in the U.S. annually.

The study is based 384 college students from a Southern university who answered a survey on stalking measures and had their heart rate monitored through a finger pulse oximeter. Participants were asked if they followed, watched or spied on someone; or tried to communicate through a variety of written and physical methods with someone against their will over the last year. Of the sample, 32 had engaged in these stalking behaviors, including 15 females and 17 males.

Source:Science Daily

{Childhood bullying may lead to long-lasting health consequences, impacting psychosocial risk factors for cardiovascular health well into adulthood, according to a study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The unique study tracked a diverse group of over 300 American men from first grade through their early thirties and the findings indicate that being a victim of bullying and being a bully were both linked to negative outcomes in adulthood.}

The study, led by psychology researcher Karen A. Matthews of the University of Pittsburgh, showed that men who were bullies during childhood were more likely to smoke cigarettes and use marijuana, to experience stressful circumstances, and to be aggressive and hostile at follow-up more than 20 years later. Men who were bullied as children, on the other hand, tended to have more financial difficulties, felt more unfairly treated by others, and were less optimistic about their future two decades later.

These outcomes are especially critical, the researchers note, because they put the men at higher risk for poor health, including serious cardiovascular issues, later in life.

“The long term effects of bullying involvement are important to establish,” says Matthews. “Most research on bullying is based on addressing mental health outcomes, but we wished to examine the potential impact of involvement in bullying on physical health and psychosocial risk factors for poor physical health.”

Previous research has linked psychosocial risk factors like stress, anger, and hostility to increased risk of health problems such as heart attacks, stroke, and high blood pressure. Because bullying leads to stressful interpersonal interactions for both the perpetrators and targets, Matthews and colleagues hypothesized that both bullies and bullying victims might be at higher risk of negative health outcomes related to stress.

The research team recruited participants from the Pittsburgh Youth Study, a longitudinal study of 500 boys enrolled in Pittsburgh public schools in 1987 and 1988, when the boys were in the first grade. More than half of the boys in the original study were Black and nearly 60% of the boys’ families received public financial assistance such as food stamps.

Along with regular assessments on psychosocial, behavioral, and biological risk factors for poor health, researchers collected data from children, parents, and teachers on bullying behavior when the participants were 10 to 12 years old.

Matthews and colleagues successfully recruited over 300 of the original study participants to complete questionnaires on psychosocial health factors such as stress levels, health history, diet and exercise, and socioeconomic status. Around 260 of the men came into the lab for blood draws, cardiovascular and inflammation assessments, and height and weight measurements.

Unexpectedly, neither bullying nor being bullied in childhood was related to inflammation or metabolic syndrome in adulthood. However, both childhood bullies and bullying victims had increased psychosocial risk factors for poor physical health.

The boys who engaged in more bullying in childhood tended to be more aggressive and were more likely to smoke in adulthood, risk factors for cardiovascular disease and other life-threatening diseases.

The boys with higher scores for being bullied tended to have lower incomes, more financial difficulties, and more stressful life experiences. They also perceived more unfair treatment relative to their peers. These outcomes are also related to risk for cardiovascular disease.

“The childhood bullies were still aggressive as adults and victims of bullies were still feeling like they were treated unfairly as adults,” Matthews explained. “Both groups had a lot of stress in their adult lives — so the impact of childhood bullying lasts a long time!”

The effects of bullying were fairly similar for both Black and White men, as well as those participants who came from low socioeconomic status families.

Matthews and colleagues anticipate that both bullies and their victims may be at greater risk for poor physical health, including cardiovascular-disease events, over the long term. But they caution that many participants in the original study could not participate in this follow-up study because they were either deceased or incarcerated, which may have affected the results in unknown ways.

The findings suggest that identifying children who are at risk for involvement in bullying and intervening early on may yield long-term psychosocial and even physical health benefits that last into adulthood.

Source:Science Daily