Touch deprivation: why we need physical touch

Being touched is important. In fact, it’s so important that the absence of it can cause something we call touch deprivation or skin hunger. This means that you long for being touched as a direct result of a lack of sufficient physical contact in your life.  

Inner peace through touch

From the moment we are born, it is essential for us to be touched by others, and this remains essential for the rest of our lives. Physical touch stimulates the nerve endings of your skin, which leads to the production of endorphins in your body. Endorphins are also known as ‘happy hormones’ and they enable us to feel love and connection. Furthermore, it has a beneficial impact on our immune system, our digestion, and our metabolism, it enables us to breath more freely, and it improves blood circulation. The blood picks up more oxygen and our muscles relax. A lack of physical touch could cause severe distress with both mental and physical conditions such as aggression, depression, a weakened immune system, and a disruption of natural healing processes in the body.

Primary need

These negative consequences aren’t surprising considering we’re talking about a primary need of life that isn’t being fulfilled. A hug from an acquaintance or a stroke on the back from a caring colleague can be comforting, but the lack of physical touch by a partner isn’t compensated by these kind of gestures. Touch deprivation is mostly present among people who have lost a spouse, elderly people, people who live in captivity, or neglected children. But, it can also occur among people who experience a lack of physical touch from their partner within their relationship.

In our Western society, more and more people experience loneliness. There is an increasing lack of intimate and meaningful relationships, thus increasing the pressure for a romantic relationship to fulfill the need for physical touch.

Also read: The effect of human touch on your mental health

Physical touch versus sex

If we take a closer look at touch deprivation and the longing for physical intimacy, it becomes clear that this is something different than sex and our need for sex. Sex is a form of physical intimacy, but it is insufficient to fulfill our need for physical touch. Engaging in intimate conversations and initiating joined activities also seem to be insufficient to fulfill our need for physical touch. Even though these things are a form of intimacy, they cannot replace physical touch. So, to be in a relationship with a partner who finds it hard to enjoy physical touch can be challenging since it isn’t that easily replaced with another form of intimacy.

Also read: From intimacy to sexuality

Oxytocin

Apart from endorphins, there is a particular hormone that plays a significant role in physical touch: oxytocin. Do you recognize the feeling that the world seems to be standing still once you find yourself in your partners comforting arms after a busy and stressful day? You heart rate lowers, your blood pressure decreases, your physical tension seems to slip away, and you feel calm and relaxed.

Or after an intimate lovemaking session, after you’ve had an orgasm, when you feel the desire to cuddle or continue to make love? In both situations we have a need for connection. And we feel this need thanks to the production of oxytocin. The special thing about oxytocin is that it communicates with our body in a couple of ways. Because it is a hormone, it communicates with organs such as our heart, our brain, and our skin. But it is a neurotransmitter as well, so it also communicates with our nervous system.

Oxytocin is released when a woman gives birth to her child, when she breastfeeds her baby, or when she has an orgasm. But also every time you see your partner or when you think about your loved one in a pleasant way.

Hug hormone

Oxytocin is known as the ‘hug hormone’. But it does so much more for us than just making us long for physical touch. It enables us to connect to someone, and encourages us to trust the other person and to lower our risk perception. Our fears diminish and our body shows a reduced stress response. Because of this we challenge ourselves more to do things we otherwise wouldn’t, for example to be more vulnerable when we’ve just met someone and we’re about to fall in love. But it’s also because of this reduced stress response that we feel at ease and safe when we are with our partner: we produce more oxytocin, and thus we recover from all the stress and noise surrounding us.

Furthermore, oxytocin impacts our social skills in a positive manner. It helps us focus when we’re communicating with someone and it improves our ability to interpretate both verbal and nonverbal cues.

And what is interesting is that oxytocin seems to light up the same parts of the brain as cocaine and heroin. Some people experience it as if it were a drug that you want to get a daily dose of. In some cases, people even need a daily dose of oxytocin to feel good.

Touch each other!

Physical touch connects, decreases the amount of the stress hormone cortisol in your body, and reduces the chances of aggressive behaviour. Physical touch helps you remain calm, it encourages intimacy, and it is a primary need in life that we cannot really replace with anything else.

And because of this, it is important to take the desire, the need, or even the longing for physical touch within a relationship seriously. Loving and sincere physical touch in itself can prevent a relationship from falling apart.