“The Human Touch”
Touch is such an intimate thing. Maybe that's part of the reason why we're spiralling downward mentally/spiritually these days. People were made to be intimate. Without it, we suffer and even die, in our unattached starved space. Our souls float around looking for a physical anchor to hold onto. Safety, comfort pleasure and unity pair well...no, vitally...to these spirits of ours. Too much intimacy, without the attachment of the “strings” that are necessary to protect it, kills us in a different way. The recreational joining of souls our society deems “normal” is a silent killer as well. Our bodies and minds weren't meant for that. It's information and emotion overload. The constant cleaving and breaking of bodies and souls produces such a multitude of scars that our souls have become hardened and unable to function in the flow and purity of it's original design. A disease to which there is a cure and healing from, we just can't seem to come back from our over indulgence, once again.
Not only is the physical side of intimacy messed up today, but so is the thinking sort...stay with me here. Knowledge is intimacy too. The more we know someone, the closer we are. The more we allow our souls to get involved with our information, the more human it remains. In this high tech world, the human touch is quickly diminishing. We seem to touch our screens more than our spouse, children or friends. Keeping contact, both physically and spiritually, with each other is something we should be very concerned about preserving. I think the last couple of years has torn that from us and the consequences are becoming painfully apparent. Mental and physical illness is the new pandemic that no one seems to want to attribute to, well, anything we may have done wrong lately. It seems that people are so afraid of dying, that they have forgotten how to live. It's just a different and longer death.
With the oncoming dominance of artificial intelligence, this human knowledge...information plus organic intuition...is quickly fading. Pure metal and plastic knowledge has no intimacy and should really be called “inhumane” and never be given authority. Purging this human ingredient from our decision making and functioning is a very bad idea. Will the powers that be, be able to recognize this and keep the balance? Will they/we be able to see the line past which we can't return nor control?
So much of life depends on touch. From romance, to our neurological and immune systems, to building, creating and communicating, touch should be embraced and encouraged...just wash your hands first ;) Have the courage to reach out to someone who most definitely is hurting in some way. Touch their hand, heart or soul. It might just save them...or you.
Interesting science stuff about touch:
Skin-to-skin contact in even in the first hour after birth has been shown to help regulate newborns’ temperature, heart rate, and breathing, and decreases crying.
The touch-deprived children have strikingly lower cortisol and growth development levels for their age group.
Research has uncovered an astonishing number of poor health outcomes that result when we are deprived of touch. The correlation between anxiety, depression and stress and touch is large and inversely related.
It has been found that touch calms our nervous center and slows down our heartbeat. Human touch also lowers blood pressure as well as cortisol, our stress hormone. It also triggers the release of oxytocin, a hormone known for promoting emotional bonding to others. Hug for at least 20 seconds to release these healing hormones.
Studies using PET scans have found that the brain quiets in response to stress when a person’s hand is held. The effect is greatest when the hand being held is that of a loved one, but it still works even if it’s just a stranger.
Research also suggests a negative correlation between touch and the severity of borderline personality disorder symptoms. This suggests that the effects of touch extend to our basic neural circuitry. Even our immune response seems to be somewhat governed by touch, with the finding that those who are deprived of human touch are more likely to suffer from immune system diseases.