Does anyone use cuddling as comfort for dealing with health issues, I have stomach issues and find that cuddling drastically helps with that and also my severe anxiety?
Yeah, cuddling doesn't do anything for stomach issues my guy that's probably placebo but it doesn't do anything for actual medical conditions. Some people will tell you that and some people might believe it, but cuddling is not medical treatment nor is it curative for anything medical.
@pmvines I meant more as a coping mechanism to help relieve stress, which may help to some degree with the illness, I know it's not going to cure a virus or anything.
Stress causes disease. If you reduce stress, you can reduce disease. And cuddling can reduce stress. So yes, I think cuddling can be a comfort when dealing with health issues. Especially the mental and emotional ones. I know my chronic pain usually decreases during and after a cuddle session. It doesn't cure it, but it's a nice break.
It always helps my mood too, but then I usually have rebound symptoms later.
It is important to recognise that cuddling is not a cure or treatment for any medical or psychological condition.
However, it can be enormously beneficial in a variety of ways. The power of simply feeling cared for, because another human is indeed holding you and caring for you, can be immense.
So yes, lots of people (including me) use cuddling as comfort and support for all kinds of health issues, it's very common.
It is getting pretty ridiculous and sort of dangerous the posts in the forum about the actual health benefits of cuddling. Be it directly, with actual physical or mental answers, or indirectly to relieve stress. Ya know what else reduces stress? Exercise, hiking, reading, etc. Don't substitute cuddling with taking your medications or seeing your therapists or just going out in the world. You are putting a lot of pressure on these "professional" cuddlers, and you will lose substantial money in the process.
@Midnight01 I think you're reading too much into what I posted, like I said above for me I view cuddling as more of a coping mechanism though cuddling also relieves stress and that does provide benefits, of course exercise, eating healthy, taking meds helps, I never mentioned any of those things...
I think emotional health can have an impact on physical health so if cuddling helps your mental health I believe you can see some benefit. Maybe not a major benefit, but some.
I find cuddling helps with my depression, anxiety, and nerve pain.. I think it’s the whole mood vs pain argument.. and it does make sense when I’m sad or frustrated my pain does get worse
I think it’s important not to become dependent on cuddling. When I first started I was wondering when my next cuddle session would be almost like an addiction, but as I’ve grown and matured, I know right can you believe me using the words grown and matured well now it’s not that important. I do other hobbies that I enjoy and I’ve also established a couple of friendships from this site that are meaningful to me, but I no longer think about when I’m going to cuddle again
Balance in everything is important. Speaking anecdotally I would say cuddling helps to promote feelings of comfort and lessens stress. And if it’s a placebo effect, it’s still working lol.
@jmbank I highly recommend you read this book which was written by a medical doctor who also happens to be the daughter of a “very old school” medical doctor. She spent years researching cases of “spontaneous remission” (what some people would call miraculous healing) and she writes about the interaction of stress management / belief systems / physical activity and chronic disease / longevity.
https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Over-Medicine-Scientific-Yourself/dp/1401939988/ref=asc_df_1401939988?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80333123589166&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=m&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583932700245011&psc=1
Book Description from the publisher
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAS SEEN ON NATIONAL PUBLIC TELEVISION We’ve been led to believe that when we get sick, it’s our genetics. Or it’s just bad luck—and doctors alone hold the keys to optimal health. For years, Lissa Rankin, M.D., believed the same. But when her own health started to suffer, and she turned to Western medical treatments, she found that they not only failed to help; they made her worse. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. Through her research, Dr. Rankin discovered that the health care she had been taught to practice was missing something crucial: a recognition of the body’s innate ability to self-repair and an appreciation for how we can control these self-healing mechanisms with the power of the mind. In an attempt to better understand this phenomenon, she explored peer-reviewed medical literature and found evidence that the medical establishment had been proving that the body can heal itself for over 50 years. Using extraordinary cases of spontaneous healing, Dr. Rankin shows how thoughts, feelings, and beliefs can alter the body’s physiology. She lays out the scientific data proving that loneliness, pessimism, depression, fear, and anxiety damage the body, while intimate relationships, gratitude, meditation, sex, and authentic self-expression flip on the body’s self-healing processes. In the final section of the book, you’ll be introduced to a radical new wellness model based on Dr. Rankin’s scientific findings. Her unique six-step program will help you uncover where things might be out of whack in your life—spiritually, creatively, environmentally, nutritionally, and in your professional and personal relationships—so that you can create a customized treatment plan aimed at bolstering these health-promoting pieces of your life. You’ll learn how to listen to your body’s “whispers” before they turn to life-threatening “screams” that can be prevented with proper self-care, and you’ll learn how to trust your inner guidance when making decisions about your health and your life. By the time you finish Mind Over Medicine, you’ll have made your own Diagnosis, written your own Prescription, and created a clear action plan designed to help you make your body ripe for miracles.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing @JohnR1972
@g_w_t_w You are welcome. This is one of my favorite books of the past 5 years. She covers case studies where people nearly killed themselves via their beliefs. One man was in a clinical trial and OD’d on an experimental drug. His blood pressure crashed and he was going into shock… until the ER doctor learned and told him he was in the placebo group.
The book discusses peer reviewed studies of instances of both people who died from negative beliefs even though there was nothing medically wrong with them as well as people who lived decades after being told they had weeks to live because of terminal medical conditions.
FWIW - I can only imagine how long my grandma would have lived if she would have had a more positive outlook on life. Her husband died when she was in her 30s and one of her daughters (my aunt I never knew) died in her early teens. My grandma had a very expensive stereo system but just 1 record to play in it, Kris Kristofferson’s version of “Why Me Lord” (a rather depressing song about loss that she would listen to over and over again).
In spite of a horrible diet, complete lack of exercise, and self imposed social isolation (she never remarried or even dated) she lived into her mid 90s with ZERO prescription medications. I seem to have inherited those physical health genes but I have a much healthier lifestyle and positive mental outlook to pair with them.
I’ve had years of a health saga with a multitude of major life changing issues and been on extended medical leave for far longer than I ever could have foreseen.
I went through a specialized and prolonged pain rehabilitation program at the Mayo Clinic. If one deals with chronic health issues, they shared then there’s a high correlation to depression. Also learned that if you deal with high enough pain for a long enough period then it can literally rewrite how your mind processes certain things. Fight or flight is designed to be a survival mechanism that is temporary. Unfortunately, over time certain people like myself and others in this program with me, this survival mechanism gets distorted since the mind associates that pain with danger but since always in pain the fight or flight response continues for weeks, months, or years. That takes an enormous toll on the body.
One big take away from that program was understanding the vicious cycle of negative thoughts on one’s health and how to help break that cycle. Someone suffers from chronic illness and/or pain, which has resulted in depression and/or anxiety over time. Physical symptoms flare, that then spikes the mental and emotional symptoms out of concern. This causes focusing more on the physical symptoms since they are flared but with additional focus on those symptoms both the physical and emotional symptoms get worse.
Incorporating positive distractions into daily life like puzzles, watching a movie, playing a game, venturing out, going for a brief walk, chatting with a friend, or even cuddling can have a huge impact with help reducing or over time breaking that vicious cycle of negative thoughts.
If cuddling helps someone reduce stress, then that can be beneficial. Yes, many other approaches can also reduce stress. I’d never suggest cuddling in place of medication or medical treatments or therapies.
I know the cuddle itself will not cure anything but I find for me it helps me to relax. While having a really nice cuddle my mind just goes into neutral as I call it. Then anything negative on my mind is totally gone, I once had a cuddle with a cracked rib and it never even hurt. Once the cuddle was over then I noticed the rib still hurt.
In a broad sense, yes. I'm a few months post surgery for prostate cancer. Cuddling is calming and a way to momentarily forget about all the bs and connect with someone. Touch is essential to me
Mind over matter books and treatments have been around for awhile with the seminal and classic one being “Anatomy of an Illness: As Perceived By the Patient” by Norman Cousins. He defeated an extremely painful connective tissue disease through what he called laugh therapy. He survived a disease with a dim incurable diagnosis for 36 years after given a no recovery prognosis from doctors. All with daily doses of belly laughs which provided pain killing effects to combat the disease along with massive doses of vitamin C. The book came out in 1979 and kick started the “heal thyself” movement.
https://books.google.com/books?id=kHSyDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT6&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
I'm dealing with chronic acute pancreatitis and IBS, along with a few other health issues. My pain is continuous and severe. Cuddling helps me forget about the pain for 2 or 3 hours. I have a FANTASTIC cuddler that I've been seeing for going on 4 years. She knows my issues and is intuitive and very empathetic. I could not ask for a better cuddle therapist.
I don’t have any health issues but I have difficulty in “turning off” my thoughts. My mind is basically multitasking from the time I wake up until I go to sleep. I can manage this through exercise, especially walking in nature or mountain bike riding in a State Park an hour south of where I live. But nothing compares to a cuddle truly quiet my mind. During my last cuddle, on a pontoon boat in Tennessee, I could barely put a sentence together because my mind was so relaxed.
I guess it helps my constant mental health issues, albeit for a short while. Would be amazing if it helped or even cured IBS haha.
@jmbank it is scientifically proven that calming nervous system helps you health overall. You can get cancer from stress. I get significant pain relief when I meditate and cuddle. Do not listen to @pmvines. He doesn’t seem like a person who has done extensive research on how bringing the body out of sympathetic state (flight and fright) to parasympathetic (heal, rest and digest) helps so many things in your body. And even if it is placebo effect? Who cares? As long as the person is feeling better. Placebo and nocebo effects are part of daily life and our thoughts, believes and expectations have a profound effect on our physiology. I read a very fascinating book called Expectation effect on the topic. Highly recommend.
@jmbank I have a feeling your stomach feels better already.
Hell, I have no health issues and I feel better already.
Putting aside the fact the fact that @Tatsy is strikingly attractive- [although we all know that supposedly does not matter on a platonic cuddling site}
This was a well thought out post- with suggested reading no less. Extremely Impressive.
Let me go way out on a limb here and predict @Tatsy may need some help processing cuddle requests for a WHILE
@jmbank I hope you are first on the list.
@Tatsy Actually I have,.more than you know. I'm a licensed masters social worker for over 20 years with credentials for counseling and therapy . I have years of experience in the mental health field in both inpatient and outpatient psych and am familiar with several modalities of therapy and am currently a hospice social worker for over 7 years now . But I'm not here for a pissing contest.
I have my reasons for having a strong stance on this topic,.particularly on a site like this that is full of impressionable, desperate, at times mentally unwell people, who are sometimes at their wits end with their mental health and are willing to believe anything . And lots of people offering solutions to problems that they are in no way qualified to give. Like it or not people on here will tell you they can cure cancer with their hugs, and some people will actually believe them, being on here since 2016 I've certainly seen it all. So yes I feel compelled.to point out that cuddling is fun but it's not miracle water.
I will say I absolutely agree so what if it's placebo effect . I dress happy to hopefully feel happy on the regular, and my hospice patients also seem to get a kick out of it. Placebo effect is harmless., unless you start believing that placebo is a cure.
Oh yay! This is right up my professional alley! And not the cuddle pro one....but real life psychology and neuroscience!! 🤓
I'm sure we all know that cuddling produces chemicals that make us feel good....but they don't stop there! There are infinite scientific studies showing the physical (and lasting) effects of oxytocin, which are mood enhancing but also
Oxytocin is also shown to impact dopamine production which, together, increase motivation, bonding, and pro social behaviors. As well, there's a proven connection with serotonin production which helps with bonding and parental behaviors.
☝️ That is why/how cuddling can help with illness, depression, anxiety, etc. Oxytocin literally reduces or blocks the negative contributors to those things and increases (or helps increase) the positive brain chemicals that help with those things. That's exactly the main reason that exercise is always suggested to help with those things too....and produces similar effects to cuddling.
Depression and anxiety are both disorders that are caused in part by problematic serotonin release (or reuptake). Those are also things that cuddling is scientifically proven to help with, with the help of oxytocin. When talking about pain illnesses (which i personally have many of!!), the science also proves those chemicals help with pain issues....as well as chronic illness in general (which I also have many of!) .
-- (You can look all this stuff up in Google Scholar....or I'll do it if you tell me exactly what you want to know about 😁 I have access to any scientific or medical study out there through my school)
All that being said, the important word here, is "helps"....not cures. There is actually nothing that cures any of the illnesses talked about here. And anything that can be done for any of them is, to some percentage, helpful and not curative. So use cuddling in combination with other things. I absolutely do! I exercise as much as I'm able....try to eat decently....take meds....take supplements.... get sunshine....cuddle....etc!!
And THAT ☝️ being said, cuddling is something that we cannot simply go out and get at the store (or pharmacy) or something we can do for ourselves. PLUS, there's a social and personal connection to it as well....which REALLY helps with loneliness and depression. I have great connections with my cuddle partners! We text intermittently outside of sessions even ☺️
TLDR: Cuddling is literally scientifically proven to help with all the things/illnesses mentioned in this thread. There's tons of proven studies to back that up. However, not curative (none of these things talked about actually have cures), so it should be done in balance with other treatments.
😉☺️🤓
Perhaps it’s the oxytocin produced while exploring therapeutic touch is aiding to block the pain signals. Perhaps you are cuddling in a position that displaces the hydrochloric acid from direct contact with a stomach ulcer or something. Imagine a ball filled with hydrochloric acid and you are used to having the hydrochloric acid stay in direct contact with an ulcer due to a chronic holding pattern like sitting or standing, however, while cuddling you place yourself in an atypical body position that puts that liquid in another part of the ball away from the ulcer maybe while laying on your side. Maybe having a lot on your mind, stress, or whatever and cuddling eases that stress. Not saying you have ulcers or whatever, just exploring possibilities.
FWIW - there is a ton of research from highly reputable such as Harvard University about the positive benefits of mindfulness meditation. This is just 1 small example.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/mindfulness-meditation-practice-changes-the-brain
I suspect in SOME instances, cuddling could produce similar results but it would require the right cuddle partners, in the right environment, with the right intentions and a high degree of trust. It would also probably take several sessions.
I am NOT claiming this is a substitute for physical or mental healthcare, just that there could be substantial benefits when cuddling is done under the right circumstances.