You’re Not Just Lonely, You’re Touch Starved
The Loneliness of The Body and Heart
Touch is so important to the human experience. Touch heals. Touch conveys love. Without touch, babies would never be born. Why do some shamans call themselves hands-on healers? Because the connection between one person and another is so important. It can breathe life into the dead.
Your skin is hungry. You want to hold a hand.
There is a hollow feeling in your chest that seems to appear and disappear at its own will. It haunts you every night when you are in bed, on a sofa watching TV, drinking like usual in your favorite bar, or returning home from work. The wind sends chills down your spine, and you hastily tighten the muffler around your neck.
You realize that what you desire at your very core is not merely warmth but love, affection, and human connection through words and skin.
You are deeply and very utterly touch-starved.
What is Touch-Starvation?
Touch starvation occurs when you have been deprived of skin-to-skin contact for a long time. It is a hunger for touching and connection with another human being through physical contact, touch, and hugs.
Is it Perverted?
No. Being touch-starved is a prevalent thing, a very human and in fact, a very innocent thing. It happens to everybody: teens, little children, adults, and even elderly people.
As humans, we’re wired to crave touch. On the day of our birth, we were cuddled, rubbed, and snuggled by others — from parents to the medical staff. Physical touch helps to ease sadness and pain, it is one of the five senses we have that connects our inner self to the outside world.
That is why, when we go on for a long time without being touched or hugged or loved on a physical level, it takes a toll on our mental health. For children, it often hampers their cognitive growth and development of decision-making skills. For adults, however, it makes us very desperate and lonely.
Why is touch important?
Skin-to-skin contact is very important for both your mental and emotional well-being.
When you feel snowed under, the body releases the stress hormone called cortisol which, by all means, makes you stressed.
One of the things touch (hugs especially) can do is reduce your stress levels, allowing the immune system to work the way it should. Touch calms your heart rate and blood pressure by stimulating pressure receptors that transport signals to your vagus nerve. This nerve connects the brain to the rest of the body and uses the signals to slow the pace of the nervous system.
Physical touch stimulates pathways for oxytocin, the natural antidepressant serotonin, and the pleasure neurotransmitter dopamine. It helps to build healthy relationships with your peers.
How common is touch starvation? How real is it?
Touch starvation is more common in countries where social norms are increasingly becoming more touch-averse.
A measured to what degree people welcomed touch in five countries. Finland and France were found to be at the top, while the United Kingdom was at the bottom
Why a culture may possess less acceptance for touch depends upon the culture, tradition, and norms in that specific society. A rise in such touch averseness was quite noticeable right after the end of covid lockdown. It could be because of people’s increased dependency on technology or the rise in introverted tendencies. Or it could be a direct result of the wave of loneliness and touch starvation that a huge mass of the world’s population had to go through while they had to be cooped up in their house 24/7, anxious, isolated from society and any physical human connection.
Would it be a stretch to say that many of us had lost of minds during those times?
Why do We need to talk about this?
So, at the end of the day, we shall mention the elephant in the room. Why do we need to talk about touch starvation? It sounds perverted, too primal, and almost against the culture of modern-day self-independence.
While the concept of depression and loneliness has become more acceptable in today’s society, this desperate craving for physical contact is still less talked about. Even though so many of us have experienced this in our lives, we tend to dismiss this part of our human self as insignificant and perhaps, also shameful.
Skin starvation often leads to people seeking physical touch through various activities that involve heavy physical contact like oil massages, manicures, facials, casual sex, or even cuddling with their cat. These activities may be an instant solution to quench this desire, but they do not work in the long run.
More than half of this generation is lonely in this deep and forlorn way that we go about night after night, seeking companionship like a drug. The loneliness of the heart and the body may appear different but at their very core, they are two parts of the same hollowness.
Our bodies are lonely because our hearts are lonely. Our hearts are lonely because we, ourselves are lonely. And we are lonely because we cannot connect with the rest of the world.
Thank you for reading.
