A Trick To Avoiding Stress
This seems to work for women, but apparently not for men. A study from Germany found that women who were instructed to embrace their romantic partner prior to a stressful experience suffered less stress than women who didn’t embrace their partners. The researchers from Germany’s Ruhr University Bochum noted that previous studies revealed that massages, embraces combined with hand-holding, and embraces plus affectionate communication can all help reduce signs of stress in women. They added that few studies have investigated these effects in men. They reported that the study results suggest that a brief embrace with a romantic partner might reduce stress for women facing stressful social situations such as job interviews or presentations. The authors called for research into related effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to explore whether social restrictions that reduced social touch may be associated with observed increases in stress and depression during the pandemic.
Source
Gesa Berretz, Chantal Cebula, Blanca Maria Wortelmann, Panagiota Papadopoulou, Oliver T. Wolf, Sebastian Ocklenburg, Julian Packheiser. Romantic partner embraces reduce cortisol release after acute stress induction in women but not in men. PLOS ONE, 2022; 17 (5): e0266887 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266887
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