Dear LPG, 

I do live alone but before I start this message I want to stress that I am NOT looking for a boyfriend.

I was taking a look around the internet the other day when I came across a website that in forms that, on average, we humans would benefit from 12 hugs a day while 4 should keep us going.  From what I have read it is all about a hormone called Oxytocin which is increased when we touch others.

Just in case you are interested it is the hormone that promotes happiness and bonding, and increases when you are in contact with another person.   The internet tells that it ‘is a peptide hormone and neuropeptide normally produced in the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary’, and a bit of further research informs me that both these organs are somewhere in our heads.  All we really need to know is that hugging is a really good thing to do.

Some of us are very tactile while others are not but I think that as we get older, there becomes less and less opportunity to hug anyone as our friends become fewer and fewer. 

we all know that for many older people the only people that they see on a day to day basis are their carers and Covid-19 has taken a certain amount of trust out of any sort of contact at all.  The PPE which carers still use for everyone’s continued protection, makes even the touch of hands appear risky and leaves even hand to hand contact impossible with those blue rubber gloves causing the barrier that we are now all used to.

It is gradually becoming safer to get a little more up close and personal again which I believe is a good thing and while none of us want to scare anyone off, going in for a bit of a platonic cuddle when we have the opportunity is now, a reflex that so many of us have become weary of or that our subconscious has even completely forgotten about. 

Please remember that, in the cold weather they can also bring us a bit of physical warmth not to mention the social aspect of the thing and, Gentlemen, there is nothing wrong with the occasional man-hug.   Now all the male celebrities are at it on the telly, going in for a bit of a man-moment is becoming more fashionable.

I think that we need to learn how to hug again… 

GC, Sydenham

GC supports her argument with a bit of what the internet has to offer…

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