Touch in Times of Pandemic
By Amber Goodwin-Figes
I love touch. It really is my love language. Nothing makes me feel more grounded, secure, or loved than a hug or a hand held or, in the absence of my most beloved humans, a huge warm blanket pile to wrap myself up in. I find touch to be the most nourishing and restorative practice, and I’ve often wondered: why? Loving touch, or its replica, is one of our most deeply instinctive means of grounding and soothing ourselves. Where does this come from?
Perhaps, in part, it is rooted in our innate need for community. We are social creatures, and whether within our loving families, a few select friends, a deeply connective sexual partner or the herd we choose to slam shots with at the bar, we are all seeking the communities that give us a sense of home, that make us feel seen and understood and accepted. Touch is a signifier of our safety and belonging to these tribes – I hold your hand, I hold your body to mine, I trust you with my body and am intimately comfortable with you.
This waxing lyrical does hold water – I'm no scientist (in fact, out of sheer desperation, I cried during my GCSE Science exams and barely passed), but from what I’ve gathered on my curious travels*, I’ll give you a brief explanation. The limbic system is an area within the brain that, among other things, deals with emotion and memory, alongside the processing of emotional stimuli and reinforcing behaviour. It is, in part, kept in balance by interaction with the outside world and awareness of our physicality. It is in our sense of perspective and self that we develop a healthy gauge for assessing physical and emotional danger, a process that is rooted in both our rational and hormonal bodies. When we find a nourishing community that welcomes us with loving touch, our limbic brain hits the jackpot on balanced hormone release and we feel safe, loved, joyful and accepted in ourselves.
Okay, so touch keeps our "happy" hormones regulated, helps maintain our sense of self, and gives us a feeling of safety and nourishment. That certainly sounds like a good enough reason for my seeking it out, not only to soothe but to gift joyful feels. Behold, what an excellent tool for emotional wellness, right at our fingertips! But, plot twist, what happens when we find ourselves in a global pandemic in which we have to avoid physical contact with one another?
Amongst Covid’s many difficulties, we have found a complementary pandemic of loneliness. Whether living alone and isolated, or perhaps feeling lost and distant from our partners as we struggle in the deep anxiety of endless bad news, touch has become less and less available to us when we need it most.
This seems like an opportune point to throw out some more limbic system facts – this system is a wonderfully old part of the brain and is deeply connected to our fight or flight response when perceiving danger – that’s the processing-of-emotional-stimuli bit I mentioned earlier. This is an incredibly important and useful system that, when firing properly, allows us to interact in our world fully and safely. However, when we encounter traumatic experiences – like our world being utterly changed and thrown into uncertainty almost overnight - this protective response from our body can become overwhelmed and enter a chronic state of anxiety. Sound familiar?
In the same way that physical touch can be used for maintaining our emotional wellness, it can also restore it. An integral part of resolving the physiological typo of chronic anxiety is to return to the body – awareness within and of our physical senses retriggers part of the brain that navigates perspective and sense of self, often leading to a release from a perpetual danger state and a return to a balanced, peaceful self.
In short, a lot of us could really do with some touchy-feely right now.
As bodywork practitioner Licia Sky explains in The Body Keeps The Score, by traumatic stress specialist Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, “the body is physically restricted when emotions are bound up inside, (but) mindful touch and movement grounds people and allows them to discover tensions. When the physical tension is released, the feelings can be released. Touch makes it possible to live in a body that can move in response to being moved.”
Touch is essential and unrivalled in regulating our stress levels, healing us from our lifelong trauma and daily struggles alike, and enabling us to cope with the world. So how do we engage with touch within the confines of Covid?
It may feel impossible, or at best, bittersweet, but there is power in the alternatives available. Movement and sensation can be an artful substitute for physical touch: a gentle walk with sunshine touching your skin, awakening the rhythm and warmth of your body; bundling yourself in soft, warm blankets; standing under a hot running shower. The interaction between body and mind is the same – in physical sensation and acts that invite us into the world around us, we trigger the self-soothing, calming areas of the brain.
Moreover, when we marry creativity with the sensory – scribbling some haikus, digging out the watercolours you bought optimistically at the start of lockdown - we can gift ourselves a gentle perspective of our situation. This wider perspective can help us in processing our pandemic anxiety, and calm ourselves by simply being present.
Nothing can quite replace the joy of being surrounded by our clan, but until we’re reunited, the sensory self can be a potent source of empowerment. Lean into those painful spaces with grace and kindness, allow yourself to breathe where you are, and trust that in the midst of lockdown, you are capable of quenching your thirst for touch.
*I’ve been guided heavily by ‘The Body Keeps The Score’ by Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk in writing this article and would certainly encourage you to read it – it blew my mind.