If you’ve been less productive during the pandemic and miss the days when we hugged our friends and family members freely, a professor at the University of Virginia says you’re not alone – and not to blame. We are, he says, hard-wired to hug, and doing so frees our brains to focus on other things.
James Coan is a professor of psychology who teaches a course called Why We Hold Hands. He contends that the human brain is wired to be watchful, always on the lookout for dangers – like a pandemic, a high-stakes election or a changing climate.
“When those things demand our attention it becomes so much harder to get other work done,” he explains.
And in that frame of mind, we may react strongly to any form of stress. The antidote to this tension, he says, is something that signals.
“We shake hands to signal cooperation and safety, and when we feel safe we can devote our full mind to the task at hand.”
Or, better yet, to press our bodies together in a hug.
“A warm hug literally tells your brain that it has less to worry about, and it needn’t worry as much about whatever does happen, giving us a little bit of a break – a chance to relax.”
And from an evolutionary standpoint, hugs were an important way to survive another threat – cold weather..
“Mammals evolved to regulate their internal body temperature by huddling. Huddling is sort of the broad mammalian form of hugging press your body together, so hugging is something we’ve been doing since we were tiny little rodents avoiding dinosaurs.”
Now, however, we find ourselves hug-less – or at least getting fewer hugs.
“That’s emotionally painful and physically painful in many ways, because we get depressed and anxious, so one of the things I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about is what might count as a virtual hug?’
When Notre Dame caught fire in Paris, he recalled, strangers gathered outside and began singing hyms.
When COVID hit Italy, people stood on their balconies and sang, prompting Coan to conclude that doing something creative for others is a bit like hugging.
“And to show how serious I am, I’m going to sing to you very briefly right now: ‘Ah poor bird. Take thy flight, high above the sorrows of this sad night .’ Now my voice isn’t spectacular, but it does the job. I sing to you, and in doing so I create a state where I’m quite vulnerable for rejection, and you – in response to my vulnerability – say, ‘that was lovely,’ or ‘thank you.’ The vulnerability plus the acceptance and the reassurance – really nourishes our brains, making it feel like it’s safe, like there are people in the world who care what happens to us, and we don’t have to be as watchful for danger in the future,” he says.
He even tested this theory on his students – asking them to sing for the class, but now – teaching remotely – had had them record an English children’s song and send him an audio file. He then mixed them and shared with the group.
When they heard the mix, students agreed that singing -- like hugging or holding hands – is something humans do to signal cooperation and solidarity in the face of threats, and Coan says that’s true in every society on Earth.
