These Are The 5 Most Important Reasons You Need Physical Touch Every Single Day

Nov 30, 2018 by apost team

Humans tend to rely on their hearing and vision more than their other senses. However, that doesn't replace our need for touch. When it comes to this very physical sense, humans benefit from having touch every day.

Touch is a significant part of what brings two people together. Since physical touch can never be achieved with distance between us and another person, there is a very real sense of connectedness that comes from physical touch.

When looking at the way children grow and develop physically and socially, physical touch really makes a difference. The hugging, kissing, and back rubs that parents provide their children with are a very important past of their young lives.

In a study of baby monkeys, psychologist Harry Harlow recorded whether monkeys deprived of food would choose food or touch. The monkeys chose touch, just as any human child would.

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Technology has been trying to bridge the gap between distance and touch for years. Some of the newest tech companies have even developed products that allow people to use the Internet to touch another person.

This physical/virtual connection occurs by way of "haptic" feedback connections. The person on the receiving end wears a certain device that mimics another person's touch on the skin.

The person sending the message begins a haptic conversation by touching the device. Then, the receiver will feel the touch through their own device.

As this technology progresses, you may be able to feel physical touch from anywhere. Until then, you would do well to find other ways to get in your daily quota of physical touch.

Just how powerful is physical touch? Is it really something we can't live without?

Find out for yourself by reading the following ways physical touch helps us everyday:

As humans are social beings, they need physical touch to communicate properly.

Even if the touch is just a pat on the back or a tap on the hand, this action speaks volumes to the body. This use of communication by touch helps to build a mutual bond with another person. Through these little actions, we are able to speak the language of physical touch, even when we aren't showing affection.

Consider a handshake after an important business meeting or a tap on the shoulder to alert you to something happening nearby. These physical connections, though fairly simple and insignificant hold their own importance in the moment that they're made.

Humans are able to feel their emotions through their sense of physicality.

The way that we exist in the physical world is what allows us to feel anything. For example, you know you're scared when you feel a tightness in your stomach. You know you're excited when you feel goosebumps appear on your skin.

Likewise, when trying to feel connected to another person, you need physical touch. If you spent a date with someone and they never expressed the desire to connect with you physically, you'll think that they weren't interested in you.

Many of our emotional experiences are elicited by physical touch. Through touch, humans are able to access a wide arrange of emotions.

Through touch, we establish intimacy and interpersonal interactions. Each person communicates in their own unique way through physical touch. For this reason, one person's hug can mean so much more than a hug from someone we've just met. This is because we attach our emotions to this physical act.

Touch has the power to convince others to do what we want them to do.

Physical touch shows how important we think something is and encourages the other person to pay attention. By showing physical touch, we can physically tell the other person that we need them to pay attention to us.

Touch is very powerful. When we see it as a way to send and receive energy, we value it more.

Our touch can convey positivity if we are happy or affectionate at the time. When we touch someone else, we can send that positive energy to them.

Similarly, when someone else touches us, they can send their positive or negative energy as well.

There's a reason that therapeutic touch is so powerful. For years, humans have relied on the likes of massage, acupressure, and chiropractic pressure in order to heal.

These touch therapies help the body heal through the sheer power of physical touch. Interestingly enough, physical touch can also be used to heal the mind. Certain types of licensed psychologists even use physical touch to help their patients heal.

Touch can help people that have been hurt by physical abuse learn to heal from the trauma they suffered, heal suicidal individuals through communicative caring, guide partners as they undergo therapy or help to facilitate bonding as part of group therapy sessions.

There's no end to the power that physical touch has on our lives.

Do you have your own story about how physical touch has positively affected your life? Please let us know about your experiences in a comment below and pass this along to your friends and family so they can benefit from physical touch, too!