I am curious about printed matter, but it is not often that I read ELLE or COSMOPOLITAN.. In the living room at my sisters house I saw this magazine and I picked it up. I flipped opened the page and it opened to this page.
there was a sentence that caught my attention
WHAT WE LOSE WHEN WE KEEP OUR DISTANCE.
The author, with a sonorous name Sushma Subramanian, that brought back memories of Woodlands Udipi Restaurant in the streets of Madras, will publish in 2/2021 How to FEEL: The science and meaning of touch.
For this serendipity of events, I thank you, MS. SS, who is an Asst. Professor at UMaryWashington.
I live in a country where noise is confused with happiness and an Inferno for an Introvert! We say that our hands are always touching someone or other. So we are a happy kind of people, joyous, breaking out into a dance easily and hugs and kisses galore. Also I am aware of the other Inferno for Extroverts, Japan, where touching someone might incite a riot or even Germany or Northern Countries where touching is not the norm.
Once visiting University of Heidelberg, I put my hands on an anthropological colleague, and she warned with her teutonic stare: that was too close.
In Japan, I also discovered, private and public aspects of touch and that is another story altogether. But they go to extreme lengths to avoid touching or be near covid distance of each other.
I enjoyed reading Ms. SS article. I am extremely touchy person, touchy in the sense of touching and not the other one, and it is okay in my country to be like that. I am also an Anthropologist and until recently on the road most of the times, coming across Qataris, Cochinis, progressive Vietnamese among the coterie of nationalities in my life. and to boot I work with Indigenous people who in general are averse to touch. In Asia, and in Muslim countries touching is averse, in Latin America, it can be the other extreme, with three kisses on the cheeks when you meet your friends (even if they are of the same gender, as among the Portenos).
One thing I have noticed, with a heavy heart, is that the developing countries, are not encouraging touching, and touche is becoming verboten (pun intended). Even the Yiddische word, tuchus, is disappearing!
What Lack of Affection Can Do to You
We're facing a crisis of skin hunger, and it has real consequences.
Maybe you wish your spouse or partner were a bit more demonstrative of his or her love. Maybe you’ve tried without success to get certain people in your life to be more affectionate with you, so you go on wishing for more affection than you receive. If any of this sounds familiar, then you’re experiencing a common problem known as skin hunger, and you're far from alone. Consider:
- Three out of every four adults agree with the statement, “Americans suffer from skin hunger.”
- More Americans live alone than ever before.
- One in four Americans reports not having a single person to talk to about important issues.
- Loneliness among American adults has increased by 16 percent in the last decade.
(Thank you Psychology Today, Kory Floyd and SS to talk about him in her article)
I remember a ditty from australia, I have two hands, one to hold a beer, another to hold my girlfriend...
I can vouch for the therapeutic effects of touch, of which i have seen multiple examples. Cuba is advanced in many aspects fo the health of the society as health care is seen as more than giving excellent care to the individual (in the USA, excellent care to the individual who can pay). In Cuba, there is a university educated cadre of people, Cultura Fisica, five years at the university, but there is no equivalent to many other countries. They are more than massage therapists but with their advanced knowledge they can be so useful in the health care of the individual.
My own Cultura Fisica person, grandchildren of Jamaican and Haitian migrants to Cuba, comes to my house and spends one hour instructing me and going along with me, much like a trainer in other countries. They do not affect medical knowledge like the American Trainers (one of them said to me: I am a medical provider? whatever that means).
Valentin when he is finished with the session, partake in the lunch cooked by my sister and wants me to feel good about myself (remember, Health is not the absence of disease but a sense of well being) and increase my flexibility (long hours on Qatar Airways seat 1 K or SQ)... Yoga is also good for improving flexibility. Much of what Valentin wants me to do resembles Yoga asanas.. but of course YogaSutra of Patanjali is another cup of tea altogether.
I used to work with a humble and efficient Physiotherapist at one the tribes in Nebraska. Pat C was a quiet spoken, attentive midwesterner, who is now professor of PT somewhere or other. At that time I noticed that my patients with Diabetes who sought out Pat's services were having better blood sugar levels. I called him and said, jovially, Pat, I am a little concerned that my patients all have lower blood sugars when they come to you, are you slipping in a bit of Insulin by any chance ?
in our Island, we are so good at touching that we can almost market it and in a way we do. We dance in a way that means physical touch and that touch with rhythmic music can be intoxicating to many an european devoid of touch along with the Sun. Our number one export to Europe is young men and women! (of marriageable age)
The greatest punishment of this Covid era for a person like me, touchy extrovert, is lack of physical touching at any level. One has to be careful and I do look after patients. At one time, touching was healing, but now ?
I know, like many that it was the effect of the touch and also the relief of pain or comfort afforded by PT that brought the blood sugars down.
