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Self-soothing touch and being hugged reduce cortisol responses to stress: A randomized controlled trial on stress, physical touch, and social identity

BACKGROUND: Being touched by others improves stress coping. However, when touch from others is unavailable, feels uncomfortable, or is not considered to be safe (as in the COVID-19 pandemic), self-touch gestures, like placing a hand on the heart, may provide an alternative way to experience less str...

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Autores principales: Dreisoerner, Aljoscha, Junker, Nina M., Schlotz, Wolff, Heimrich, Julia, Bloemeke, Svenja, Ditzen, Beate, van Dick, Rolf
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9216399/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35757667
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2021.100091
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author Dreisoerner, Aljoscha
Junker, Nina M.
Schlotz, Wolff
Heimrich, Julia
Bloemeke, Svenja
Ditzen, Beate
van Dick, Rolf
author_facet Dreisoerner, Aljoscha
Junker, Nina M.
Schlotz, Wolff
Heimrich, Julia
Bloemeke, Svenja
Ditzen, Beate
van Dick, Rolf
author_sort Dreisoerner, Aljoscha
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Being touched by others improves stress coping. However, when touch from others is unavailable, feels uncomfortable, or is not considered to be safe (as in the COVID-19 pandemic), self-touch gestures, like placing a hand on the heart, may provide an alternative way to experience less strain. METHODS AND MATERIALS: In this study, 159 healthy participants (96 women, 62 men, and 1 non-binary person), aged 18–35 years, were exposed to a standardized psychosocial stressor (Trier Social Stress Test) to investigate whether self-soothing touch or receiving a hug from others has a buffering effect on their stress responses. In addition, the study explored whether the effectiveness of these interventions is moderated by participants' assignment to a “personal” or “social” identity condition. Participants provided salivary cortisol samples, wore an ECG to record their heart rate, and completed self-report measures on stress-related subjective-emotional states during the study. RESULTS: For cortisol, mixed-effects regression models with Touch and Identity as between-subject factors and Time as the within-subject factor yielded a significant main effect for touch and a significant interaction of Touch x Time indicating that cortisol levels differed between the experimental touch interventions. Post-hoc contrast tests showed that participants in both touch conditions had lower cortisol levels after the stressor than those in the control conditions. Heart rates and self-reported measures of stress neither differed across touch nor identity conditions. The three-way interaction for Touch x Identity x Time was non-significant for either outcome measure. DISCUSSION: These results are in line with previous work indicating that physical touch has protective effects on physiological stress responses but not necessarily on self-reported stress and suggest that self-soothing touch and receiving hugs are simple and yet potentially powerful means for buffering individuals' resilience against stress.
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spelling pubmed-92163992022-06-24 Self-soothing touch and being hugged reduce cortisol responses to stress: A randomized controlled trial on stress, physical touch, and social identity Dreisoerner, Aljoscha Junker, Nina M. Schlotz, Wolff Heimrich, Julia Bloemeke, Svenja Ditzen, Beate van Dick, Rolf Compr Psychoneuroendocrinol Clinical Science BACKGROUND: Being touched by others improves stress coping. However, when touch from others is unavailable, feels uncomfortable, or is not considered to be safe (as in the COVID-19 pandemic), self-touch gestures, like placing a hand on the heart, may provide an alternative way to experience less strain. METHODS AND MATERIALS: In this study, 159 healthy participants (96 women, 62 men, and 1 non-binary person), aged 18–35 years, were exposed to a standardized psychosocial stressor (Trier Social Stress Test) to investigate whether self-soothing touch or receiving a hug from others has a buffering effect on their stress responses. In addition, the study explored whether the effectiveness of these interventions is moderated by participants' assignment to a “personal” or “social” identity condition. Participants provided salivary cortisol samples, wore an ECG to record their heart rate, and completed self-report measures on stress-related subjective-emotional states during the study. RESULTS: For cortisol, mixed-effects regression models with Touch and Identity as between-subject factors and Time as the within-subject factor yielded a significant main effect for touch and a significant interaction of Touch x Time indicating that cortisol levels differed between the experimental touch interventions. Post-hoc contrast tests showed that participants in both touch conditions had lower cortisol levels after the stressor than those in the control conditions. Heart rates and self-reported measures of stress neither differed across touch nor identity conditions. The three-way interaction for Touch x Identity x Time was non-significant for either outcome measure. DISCUSSION: These results are in line with previous work indicating that physical touch has protective effects on physiological stress responses but not necessarily on self-reported stress and suggest that self-soothing touch and receiving hugs are simple and yet potentially powerful means for buffering individuals' resilience against stress. Elsevier 2021-10-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9216399/ /pubmed/35757667 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2021.100091 Text en © 2021 The Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Clinical Science
Dreisoerner, Aljoscha
Junker, Nina M.
Schlotz, Wolff
Heimrich, Julia
Bloemeke, Svenja
Ditzen, Beate
van Dick, Rolf
Self-soothing touch and being hugged reduce cortisol responses to stress: A randomized controlled trial on stress, physical touch, and social identity
title Self-soothing touch and being hugged reduce cortisol responses to stress: A randomized controlled trial on stress, physical touch, and social identity
title_full Self-soothing touch and being hugged reduce cortisol responses to stress: A randomized controlled trial on stress, physical touch, and social identity
title_fullStr Self-soothing touch and being hugged reduce cortisol responses to stress: A randomized controlled trial on stress, physical touch, and social identity
title_full_unstemmed Self-soothing touch and being hugged reduce cortisol responses to stress: A randomized controlled trial on stress, physical touch, and social identity
title_short Self-soothing touch and being hugged reduce cortisol responses to stress: A randomized controlled trial on stress, physical touch, and social identity
title_sort self-soothing touch and being hugged reduce cortisol responses to stress: a randomized controlled trial on stress, physical touch, and social identity
topic Clinical Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9216399/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35757667
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2021.100091
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