To Touch Is To Heal With Life

Submitted by abuzz on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 11:20

Technology enables constant connection, yet at the same time it turns us distant. The information revolution can not change our innate nature, even though most techie friends of ours would prefer to be left to their own social devices. The need for bonding, or close physical contact with other human beings, remains with us throughout our lifetimes. Scientific studies have shown that the amount of body contact in our lives plays a vital role in our mental and physical development as infants and in our happiness and vigor as adults.

In a grown man, skin covers about 19 square feet and weighs about 8 pounds. A piece of skin the size of a quarter contains more than 3 million cells, 100 to 340 sweat glands, 50 nerve endings and 3 feet of blood vessels. The connection between touch and well being is far more than skin deep. Touch influences our ability to deal with stress and pain, to form close relationships with other people, and even to fight off disease. Various studies have shown that when someone else gently holds a person's wrist, heartbeat slows & blood pressure declines.

Infants in incubators respond immensely well to touch. Children and adolescents, hospitalized for psychiatric problems, show remarkable reductions in anxiety levels and positive changes in attitude when they receive a brief daily back rub. People even prefer to die in the company of others, whether being held by strangers or their loved ones. In clinical trials, (while such practices were common,) the arteries of rabbits fed a high-cholesterol diet and petted regularly had 60% fewer blockages than did the arteries of un-petted but similarly fed rabbits. Rats, handled for 15 minutes a day during the first three weeks of their lives, showed dramatically less brain cell deterioration and memory loss as they grew old, compared with non-handled rats.

Studies point out to how loneliness may damage health: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6991584.stm
Loneliness can speed up aging: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20070820/loneliness-can-speed-aging
Loneliness kills: http://www.livescience.com/health/060331_loneliness.html
Ending Loneliness: http://www.enhancedhealing.com/articles/view.php?article=198

It is obvious that if Infinite Creator brings you to it, it is because you are meant to grow through it. But you can do something to improve your chances, or the quality of life that you experience. Take a chance & touch someone~!~

Inspiration: Ali, the first Sufi (Blessed are those who see his face) said, somewhere around 660AD:
"Your remedy is within you, but you do not sense it. Your sickness is from you, but you do not perceive it. You presume you are a small entity, but within you is enfolded the entire Universe. You are indeed the Evident Book, by whose alphabet the Hidden becomes Manifest. Therefore you have no need to look beyond yourself. What you seek is within you, if only you reflect".