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Why Zoom, etc. is good but no substitute. My strong suspicion is that being in the physical presence of others (as opposed to online connection) also matters: Losing Touch: Another Drawback of the COVID-19 Pandemic HomeNews & Opinion Losing Touch: Another Drawback of the COVID-19 Pandemic Affectionate touches tap into the nervous system’s rest and digest mode, reducing the release of stress hormones, bolstering the immune system, and stimulating brainwaves linked with relaxation. It had been seven weeks since I’d touched another human being. Arms outstretched, I walked quickly toward my dad, craving his embrace. In the instant before we touched, we paused, our minds probably running quick, last-minute calculations on the risk of physical contact. But, after turning our faces away from each other and awkwardly shuffling closer, we finally connected. Wrapped in my dad’s bear hug, I momentarily forgot we were in the midst of the worst global crisis I have ever experienced. “Touch is the most powerful safety signal of togetherness,” says Steve Cole, a psychiatrist and biobehavioral scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. Like more than 35 million other Americans, I live alone, and with the guidelines of physical distancing set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I hadn’t been getting close to anyone to avoid being infected with (or potentially spreading) SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. I’d been working, thankfully, at home and staying connected with friends and family through Zoom and Skype, but those virtual interactions were no replacement for being with loved ones in person. “When we get lonely and isolated our brainstem recognizes that suddenly we are in insecure territory and flips on a bunch of fight-or-flight stress responses without us even knowing it,” Cole says. “There’s all sorts of things in our social world that lead us to calculate that we are either safe or unsafe. You can think of physical touch, supportive and affectionate touch, as the most fundamental signal that you’re with somebody who cares about you . . . a fundamental signal of safety and well-being.” What touch does to the immune system Stress, which for many of us during the coronavirus pandemic has grown considerably, can flood the body with hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline, as part of the fight-or-flight response. Left to build up over time, those accumulating stress hormones can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, and growing levels of anxiety. Touch is hitting all of the right buttons to affect physiological processes that are that are critically important to keeping us healthy. —John Capitanio, University of California, Davis The feeling of security that comes with holding hands or hugging is a result of a cascade of physical and biochemical changes in the body and the brain that can counter the fight-or-flight response. Tiffany Field, the director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, has been studying that cascade of changes for more than three decades, focusing mainly on the effects of massage. What she and others have shown is that anything that moves the skin with a bit of pressure—hugging, holding hands, massage—stimulates pressure receptors beneath the skin. Those receptors then send electrical signals to the vagus nerve, a superhighway of the nervous system with thoroughfares leading to nearly every organ of the body and a direct line into the brainstem, which automatically regulates breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/losing-touch-another-drawback-of-the-COVID19-pandemic-67542?utm_campaign=TS_DAILY%20NEWSLETTER_2020&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=88223377&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8qomrBZX6A6M91FjwR79ElMcw1RuiEE1dwSbJvVLIeWpny3XSy_pce3Hu1SDNNZxEgqT3WeKoZ_PS5fkEse6CtLtL_jA&_hsmi=88223377 -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
