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A tender touch can be a helping hand to each
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Sometimes, science offers a touch of the mystic. This is a story of our hands, love and the empathy of the human soul.
Romantic partners do more than just transfer a tender tactile sensation when holding hands. A little magic is sparked. That’s what the imagination might conjure from a recent study about the effects that follow when hands are linked.
Breathing and heart rates synchronize. Then some of our brainwaves fall into step as if a melding of minds occurs. This brain synchronicity can begin to alleviate the physical pain of one of these linked lovers.
Researchers at the University of Colorado and the University of Haifa in Israel recruited 22 heterosexual couples between 23 and 32 years of age. The couples wore special caps to measure brain activity during several scenarios, such as sitting together without touching, sitting while holding hands and sitting in separate rooms.
Then, each of the women was subjected to mild heat pain on an arm.
Scientists noticed certain brainwaves synced just by the couples being in the same room. The phenomenon was most pronounced when holding hands. After pain was introduced to the non-hand-holding couples, that synchronicity slowed — until the hands linked again.
Tests indicated the more empathetic a man was to his partner’s pain, the more their brainwaves synced and the less pain the woman felt.
Researchers aren’t sure why this occurs, but they think empathetic touching can make the female partner feel more understood, triggering pain-reduction mechanisms in the brain.
Some, of course, might prefer a less scientific explanation of the magic that blooms between two linked souls.
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