Today is National Hugging Day, and so here at Sensuali, we are sharing some of the many powerful healing benefits of hugging directly from a hugging expert.
The Power and Simplicity of a Hug
Imagine being held in a warm embrace, arms wrapping around your body with the perfect amount of pressure, slowing down, surrendering into each other, your breath softening and synchronising. The rhythm of the rise and fall of your chest feeling like a baby being gently rocked to sleep. Eyes closing, face relaxing, jaw unclenching. Can you feel it?
Today is national hugging day and so here at Sensuali, we are sharing some of the many powerful healing benefits of hugging. My name is Eshana and I am a Sex Coach and Cuddle Queen, running regular cuddle workshops and trainings for practitioners to learn about the depth and power of hugs.
So, whether it is a self-soothing hug, a cuddle with a partner, connection with a family member, a comforting embrace with a close friend, a cuddle puddle with a group of people, physical holding from a paid professional or attending a cuddle workshop – here is an explanation of some of the healing benefits shared straight from the heart of a hugging expert.
Nervous System Regulation
Where we are in our nervous system determines whether we feel safe enough to connect or if we need to be guarded and be in protection. In our fast-paced lives, so many of us can be in an activated place of fight or flight, freeze, dissociation or collapse, feeling hypervigilant to our environment, often finding it challenging to come into a place of regulation and ease.
The incredible thing about hugging is that it is a coregulation practice. This means that if I am unsettled and come into physical contact with another person, the combination of our bodies meeting will support both of our nervous systems to move towards regulation. Any feelings of hypervigilance or threat will melt away as we return to a place of safety and balance.
This is because hugging activates the vagus nerve, the largest nerve in our body, which sends signals to our brain and body that it is time to relax and de-stress. We move into a lush parasympathetic nervous system state where our body can rest and digest and let go.
This is a big deal… Why?
When we are regulated, we feel safe and are able to connect with ourselves and others and move through life with more resilience and ease. The more regulated we are, the more resourced we are and can be our full wild and wonderful self. So much of our healing journey is being able to hold all parts of us that show up with compassion and love and when we are regulated, this is so much easier to do.
Coregulation & Repair
We first learnt about coregulation from our caregivers as children, they would use their breath, body and tone of voice to help soothe and regulate our emotions in order to provide a sense of safety and stability. Touch is an essential part of this process of healthy child development. As we move through childhood, to adolescence and into adulthood, we learn ways to self-regulate and self soothe, but our need for coregulation doesn’t disappear. It’s important to remember that no parent or caregiver can meet their child’s needs 100% and so practices like hugging, platonic touch and non-sexual intimacy can repair unmet needs from childhood. A simple hug is not only holding our adult self, it is also nourishing the younger parts within our psyche wanting our attention, care, love and acceptance.
Hormone Release = Emotional & Physical Wellbeing
Most humans have an intrinsic need for touch and each person will have a varying degree of how much connection they want to both give and receive. When we hold a hug for more than 6 seconds, oxytocin is released. This is the hormone that a person’s body is flooded with when they have a baby. It is an incredibly powerful bonding hormone, responsible for making you feel loved up and comforted, supporting a sense of safety and trust. The longer a hug is held, the more oxytocin infuses your body.
Perhaps you want to give it a try now, wrap your arms around your chest, allow your eyes to close or lower your gaze, take a deep breath in and exhale, hold this for at least 10 seconds and notice how you can create your own little oxytocin bubble. You might feel relaxation, a softening, regulation – this is the healing power of hugs in action.
As well as oxytocin, hugging releases endorphins, serotine and dopamine, a fine quad of happy neurochemicals dancing through your body, elevating your mood, sense of wellbeing and emotional balance, improving sleep, relaxing muscles and reducing pain. This potent hormonal cocktail can reduce anxiety and stress, support feelings of loneliness and isolation, lower heart rate and blood pressure, reduce inflammation as well as improving the immune system. Pretty cool, huh.
Embodiment
We live in a pretty disembodied world and for those of us that have experienced trauma, we are more likely to be disconnected from our body. So much of the sex coaching and healing work that I do is supporting people to slowly come back into their body and feel.
When hugging is done mindfully, it can gently bring us back into the here and now and into the body. Examples of mindful conscious hugging can be done by noticing the temperature of skin-to-skin contact, the texture of your partners clothing, noticing the rhythm of your heart beat, the pressure of their arm next to yours. Bringing attention to the different senses can make hugging a gentle embodiment practice.
They are some simple, yet power ways that hugging can support our healing journey. Before I go, I wanted to share some of the secret ingredients that I use to support people into a relaxing, healing hug in the Belly2Belly workshops that I deliver.
The Secret Ingredients to the Perfect Hug
Lay down on your side, facing your partner and allow your bodies to come into connection, finding the position where you can rest and melt into each other as though you fit like a glove. Keep adjusting yourselves until you find the most comfortable position, so that you are not holding yourself up in any way. The idea is that you can really surrender into each other and the experience.
Begin by taking a deep breath in through the nose for around 4 seconds and exhale with a longer out breath of around 6 to 8 seconds depending on your breath capacity.
You can then introduce a sound on the exhale, nothing forced, something natural to you. Inhaling through the nose and making a sound on the exhale. Inhaling through the nose and making a sound on the exhale.
The magic then happens when you can synchronise your inhale and sounding exhale with your partners. Feeling both of your bodies expand and contract with the breath, hearing the unique sound that is created from both of your voices, feeling the vibration of the sound gently reverberate across your bodies.
The combination of touch, breath and sound can take you into a timeless parasympathetic place in your nervous systems. Deepening connection, developing trust, supporting attunement, feeling at home in your body in relation to another.
Simple. Powerful. Precious.
Enjoy.
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Eshana Spiers
Eshana Spiers is a Sex Coach and Cuddle Queen offering workshops, coaching and trainings on the themes of intimacy, sexuality and relationships.
