According to Montagu (1988), our skin serves as a container for our organs, and gives our body boundaries. However, its functions go far beyond. We establish different levels of permeability through the skin not only with the environment but also with other people. Our skin has the function of both uniting and separating us from others. The skin has several integrative functions, such as sensory, expressive, erotic, psychological, and physiological. It’s responsible for our thermoregulation, water balance, touch, sensitivity, temperature, pressure and pain. Moreover, emotions are expressed through the skin and give us our referential of identity. For example, we blush with embarrassment, become pale when afraid, and red when angry. We get itchy when we repress our lust, twitch when afraid of contact, shudder when feeling fear, surprise or happiness, and have cold sweats when facing danger ... (TORO).
Among the various forms of touch, Biodanza uses several exercises that involve caresses and embraces. The embrace is one of the most universal forms of touch and contributes to health and healing in a fundamental way. As one of the exercises of the line of affectivity widely used in Biodanza sessions, the embrace is a reciprocal act of giving and receiving affection, of supporting each other in all of our humanness. When we embrace someone we express our affection, love and tenderness. We feel secure and protected. When we embrace, we encounter ourselves and the other simultaneously. The close proximity means that the air we breathe mixes together, and it becomes possible to hear the heart, the pulse of life. Embraces are incredibly powerful, capable of giving reassurance and bringing calm to any situation.
Kathleen Keating (1997), creator of the Hug Therapy, tells us that besides comforting, hugging makes healthy people even healthier, happy people even happier, and makes those who already feel safe feel even safer. Thus, embraces have a positive impact in all situations. Since they’re a universal way of obtaining deep physical and emotional contact, they are therefore a significant therapeutic tool. The gesture of extending one’s arms is a universal sign of peace and brotherhood. It is linked to the idea of opening up to receive the other. It’s associated to the first cries and callings of the baby, when the baby stretches its arms open to be taken to the mother’s lap and receive love and reassurance. The author argues that warm embraces are a source of happiness that makes our eyes lighten up.
The simple act of hugging lowers blood pressure, heart rate and the levels of various stress-related hormones. Therefore hugging brings health and can increase longevity. The cortisol and norepinephrine (stress hormones) levels are reduced after a hug, whereas oxytocin, an important hormone linked to trust, increases (GREWEN, 2005).
In our culture, the intensity of the embrace is directly proportional to our affective bonding. Hugs are usually directed to known persons in special situations. Despite the delights of the embrace, we find it difficult to embrace strangers. When we practice Biodanza we expand our openness to embracing and start to embrace with more ease. Consequently, we intensify the quantity and quality of our embraces and enhance our ability to make connections.
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