When a friend comes to you after a stressful day, how do you comfort him? Do you let him complain? Do you pour him a glass of coffee? Those could work. But a new study finds that a very effective technique is also simple and easy—hugging.
"Individuals who reported noticing the availability of a network of supportive individuals tend to show better adaptation when faced with stress. But just because you have a support network does not mean that you absolutely feel that support," said Michael Murphy, a psychology expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He wanted to know if people who received hugs regularly could handle anxiety and stress better.
So Murphy and his team interviewed 404 men and women every evening for two weeks, During these interviews, the participants were asked a simple yes or no question -whether somebody had hugged them that day-and a simple yes or no question of whether they had experienced conflict with somebody that day. They also were asked to respond to questions about negative and positive mood states.
And the researchers found that people who experienced a conflict were not as negatively affected if they received a hug that day as participants who experienced conflict and didn't get a hug. And they were also found not to carry the negative effect to the next day, while those who did not receive one would. The findings are in the journal PLOS ONE.
Murphy does include this warning: "So our findings should not be taken as proof that people should just start hugging anyone and everyone who seems upset. A hug from one boss at work or a stranger on the street could be viewed as neither agreeable nor positive." The idea is to relieve stress. Not add to it.
