Washington : A new study has observed that hugs help protect against stress and infection.
The study conducted at Carnegie Mellon University tested whether hugs act as a form of social support, protecting stressed people from getting sick.
The study led by Sheldon Cohen, the Robert E. Doherty University Professor of Psychology in CMU’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences found that greater social support and more frequent hugs protected people from the increased susceptibility to infection associated with being stressed and resulted in less severe illness symptoms reported ANI
Cohen said that they know that people experiencing ongoing conflicts with others are less able to fight off cold viruses and they also know that people who report having social support are partly protected from the effects of stress on psychological states, such as depression and anxiety. They tested whether perceptions of social support are equally effective in protecting us from stress-induced susceptibility to infection and also whether receiving hugs might partially account for those feelings of support and themselves protect a person against infection.
The study is published in the journal Psychological Science.
