January 24, 2012 • 40 mins
Just what sort of hugger are you? Do you squeeze random strangers? Do you grapple your pals in a bear hug or go for the side-hug? In this episode, Julie and Robert discuss the science of hugging it out. Plus, you'll learn about Robert's most awkward hugs.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to Blow
your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
are you a hugger? Do you hug? Are you one
of these? Are you a head machine? Are you the
type of person who walks into the room and it's
hugs all around, or are you then have a person
(00:25):
when a huger walks into the room, you retreat to
the corner. I'm really more of a groper. I'm kidding,
I'm I'm not a gropper. Um. I'm definitely someone who
if it looks like someone wants to hug or initiating
a hug, then I'm all for the hug. But I
usually kind of check out someone's body language because there's
(00:45):
nothing worse than going in for a hug and you
get the awkward you knowess of the I don't know,
you get an elbow in your face or something along
those lines. What about you, Well, I am I am
an awkward hugger. I've sort of have to come. I've come.
I improved over the years, but I have to come
to realize that I am an awkward person when it
comes to the social dynamics of hugging. So in what
(01:06):
way are you, Well, I grew uh, I kind of
grew up in a well, I mean my my my
household was not like a super huggy kind of environment,
and my mom has and still has this, uh, this
hug variant that's uh that we referred to as the
side hug, where instead of it being like a full
on front hug, it's like she'll come up and kind
of like put an arm around like she's posing for
(01:27):
a photo with you. And I ended up inheriting this, uh,
this side hug, and I'll still catch myself doing it
or or I've I've kind of evolved where I have
like a a hybrid that is half side hug, half
front hug. Um all awkwardness though, um, especially if I'm
around somebody's really into hugging. Um, well, I'm trying to
figure out what is worse, Like a side hug, you know,
(01:50):
or someone who's just like sort of merry glands crushing you. Well,
we'll see see that that also that that dives down
to another issue here with hugging. It won't because I mean,
like even as when I was younger. Like a hug,
especially you're hugging a lady, it's I mean, yeah, well
they have they have bosoms, right, and then and you're
(02:11):
gonna have to hug into those and like that's kind
of weird. H It's true, it's going to be so.
So there's that. And then here's another thing that is
that has actually come up recently. Um, I was we
had some some friends over right and they'd come over
for dinner and we we had a little wine, and
then it was it was time for everybody to say
(02:31):
there goodbyes. So we went to hug goodbye, and I
went to hug my my friend kipt goodbye. And there's
that weird like there's this weird moment of like, all right,
I'm gonna hug this person. I was going for a
front hug, come on, like you know, because I'm trying
to put yeah, I'm trying to put my side hug
experiences behind me. And then there's this last minute confusion
that was probably intensified a little bye by the wine
(02:53):
in my system. Um, and which way our head's gonna go,
because you know, a head has to go this way,
another head has ago this way, and uh, and then
the hug is fully locked. Um, but I I kind
of like went to go one direction and then I
I panicked and went the other direction. And then afterward,
I'm like, oh, my goodness, she probably thinks I made
a pass at her. She thinks I went in, probably
(03:15):
think thinks I went in for a kiss on on
what was already a pretty awkward hug. And so I
was like, I was paranoid about it for days. I'm like, oh,
she probably thinks I'm horrible. Um, you males in in
your hugging anxiety, hugging each other or hugging ladies, and
they're there. Well, I'm glad you brought it up, because
the the male hug, the male on male hug um
(03:38):
is another very interesting topic of discussion, and I've I've
seen it. I've seen it referred to in various uh uh,
there's various terminology for the sort of masculine hug. After
It's been called a pound shake, a one armed hug,
a dude hug, a homie hug, a shug, a hetero hug,
a bro grab, a bro hug, a thug hug, a
(04:00):
man hug, a hip hop hug. So why do you
even have to determine that, you know in the first place.
That's kind of cracks me out. Well, um, I mean
a lot of it. I mean it's with with hugging
in general, but especially with male hugging, Like it's gonna
vary depending on culture. Um. I just think it's funny.
It's like women don't run around going X to the
fourth hug. Yeah, I mean, like, well, if you go
(04:21):
back in time and like man and man kisses is
like that not that big of a deal. Say, you
know Roman times, uh, early Christian Church. Then it goes
away in the Victorian era. You go you go to
places in countries like France, you go to uh, you
got to Russia, and there's more of a tradition of
of men, you know, given a peck on the cheek.
It's you know, it's not it's a sign of affection
(04:42):
and it does. It's not that's there's not a sexual
connotation to it. Well and certainly in Europe it is. Um.
It is much more intimate to give someone a hug
than a kiss on the cheek on the cheek, right,
And maybe some of that is because you're getting into
someone's space. Um, but that's what we're talking about today,
we're talking about hugs, how important they are, and we're
going to talk about the actual science behind hugs. But
I have more on male hugs to talk about. Uh.
(05:04):
I mean the traditional male hug for those I haven't
seen it. You you sort of bring in the other
person in arms wrapped around, kind of like you're you're
going in for like a pro wrestling bear hug. And
in fact, some people like if one person is one
male is bigger than the other, sometimes they will or
or or as smaller but has a bigger uh you know,
ego about them, they'll actually go for the pick up,
they'll do the they'll do the bear hug lift because
(05:26):
nothing is more more masculine. Uh and and says, this
is not a lovey dovey hug. Let's say nothing that
any sort of a possible souplex. Yeah, um, but but yeah,
you go in generally only the shoulders will be touching,
uh or, that will be the main point of contact.
And then you might even throw in and then when
you squeeze, you'll throw in kind of a kind of
(05:47):
a kind of a move because again it's kind of
like we're we're just men, you know, wrestling man, we
should if only we could butt heads, but we have
to do this stupid hug. And then of course the
back either slap on the back or pounds to the
bat because the pound like a fist is even more masculine.
Then slap to the back, and you do generally do
like three of those, um and and you may or
(06:09):
may not, like I say, throw in an attempted bear hug.
Besides heteronorms, there's actually a reason why you guys may
have this weird awkwardness in embracing each other. And we'll
talk about that in a little bit. You might actually
be hardwired not to be so much full on body huggers.
But have you got any other male on male hugging stories.
(06:32):
Just I should point out that the bear hug is
a pro pro wrestling move where one individual comes into
the front and wraps their arms around the person like
a big hug and squeezes them. And then there's also
a rear bear hug or a reverse bear hug where
the person comes up behind them and and squeezes them,
and and it's supposed to be like a method of
torture in the like in a pro wrestling kind of environment.
(06:53):
But it is it essentially? It is essentially a hug.
So you and I don't hug, but I'm gonna say this,
like you did you give me a little punch in
the shoulder once. Well, that's that's my version of a hug. Um.
But for non huggers. But if you ever do, like
I feel like giving me a hug, please don't break
my phones or you know, toss me through the air. Well,
(07:14):
that's another thing. I have got myself giving the bro hug,
slap or pound, like even when I'm like hugging a
female occasionally, you know, it's like in a moment of panic,
I'll have that in for for no reason. Yeah, I'm
just I'm I'm I'm very scared that you're gonna pull
a wrestling move on Someone's gonna be a hospital visit. Um,
here's an interesting stat The average hug last three seconds.
(07:36):
And this has been called the timing of the human spirit.
Just really yeah, nice and poetic, but there is an
ideal length of a hug, and it's actually twenty seconds.
Really is that? How long is the character in Dirty
Rock that said it's not a hug if it doesn't
last Oh, okay, that this is the uh he is
the like the CEO of Cable Town, which has bought NBC, right,
(07:58):
and he's all about the hugs and family values and
he wants um Walwin's character Jack Geegy to just start hugging.
And Jack can't because he's not hardwired. He's a shark.
He doesn't know how to do that. He says, ten seconds. Okay,
so he was that. He's actually has a pretty uh
um conservative hug there. Yeah, really he should be doubling that.
(08:20):
But he's hugging all day long, so he may for
forgetting um this sort of that you would want to
get out of a hug and what is that? But
why might we start hugging oxytocin? Yeah, so twenty seconds
hugging someone makes oxytocin start flowing from your body. And
we produce oxytosin every day and our blood and our
(08:41):
brain um in various amounts. And it's not just hugging, dancing,
having sex orgasms, U, petting your dogs and the babies.
It's like a huge row in the in the mother
child relationship. Yeah, most people think about it in terms
of breastfeeding or giving birth. Even two helps with the
'aring contractions. So oxytesin is known as the bonding hormone,
(09:04):
and it allows you to establish a deep connection with
other people. I've also seen it called the moral molecule.
The moral molecules not only in mammals, which also occasionally
tear each other limb from limbs, so right, right, so
that we don't tear each other from limb to limb
all the time. This, this wonderful moral molecule is in
us waiting to spring upon others and and hug, hug
(09:25):
it out. Really, I've also just real quick for not
not hugging people. Have a friend Liz, and I remember
her saying, and she may have picked I don't know
if she picked this up somewhere else or if this
is wisdom that emerge from within lives. But she said,
the day a hug is just a strangle that you
haven't finished yet. So well, you know what, there are
some people who use hugs therapeutically. So if you have
(09:48):
someone who is really really upset, uh, you know, they
actually seemed as though they are beyond um consoling if
you if you were to hug them and restrict aim
them and like full body hug for twenty seconds or
more that person actually will calm down. That is how
effective this oxytocin releases via a hug. Oh man, See,
(10:11):
now this totally turns the bear hug in protestling on
its head, Like what if? What if it's effectiveness in
this fictional fighting environment we're not based on I will
squeeze you until you cannot take it anymore, when you
pass out. But what if it was I will squeeze
you until into loving submission, until until loving submission, until
you realize that we're fighting over nothing and that we're
really brothers. Okay, I mean, why don't world leaders do
(10:33):
this right exactly? Mandatory thirty second hugs between all heads
of state. Well, and there are actually hug workshops, and
we'll talk about that in a little while, um, and
why they're fascinating and also sort of uh terrible at
the same time. But let's talk a little bit more
about the oxytocin because it's so interesting in the way
that it operates in our morality, our ability to trust others.
(10:55):
So the big question in understanding anything we do is,
of course, from an evolutionary standpoint, how does it fit in?
How does it make sense? Why would nature select for
hugging well neuroeconomic guru Paul Zach who actually calls himself
the love doctor. He has a lot of people call
themselves a love doctor. It doesn't mean they actually have credentials, No,
(11:16):
it's true, but he actually studies this right, so I
think that you know, out of everybody, he could probably
call himself a love doctor and and really means um.
He has a great talk on ted dot com called trust, morality,
and oxytocin, and he says that this is the hormone
that allows us to feel a sense of trust, and
from an evolutionary science perspective, it's necessary for the propagation
(11:38):
of a species. Okay, and you know there's some people
who have more oxytocin than others, and actually those people
they have found in studies appear more trustworthy. Isn't this
fascinating The people who produce lesser marked No, No, people
who produce more oxetosin just on a regular basis. Um.
(11:58):
You know, if we're in a party, let's a and
you meet someone, you're gonna know within twenty seconds whether
or not this person is feeling trustworthy to you or
probably does feel trustworthy to you, because they're usually pretty
social and uh, they're a little bit more engaged with you, right,
and you have to feel like, oh, I could trust
this person, right, they seem they seem like a good egg. Right.
(12:20):
I'm sure everybody has come away of meeting someone and saying, oh,
you know, that person is like really down on earth
or so on and so forth. That could be their
oxytocin talking. Zach and his researchers conducted a series of
studies involving test subjects watching a film about a boy
who has a brain tumor okay, And the reason why
they did that is they wanted to juice up the
empathy response okay um, which is obviously related to oxytocin.
(12:43):
And then he had subjects play an ultimatum game. The
general idea is that a first person is given a
certain amount of money and told to send some portion
of it to a second person, and they're separated by
computers and nobody knows the identity of one another. The
second person must then decide whether to accept or reject
the first person's offer. So, for example, let's imagine that
(13:04):
player one proposes divide ten dollars by offering three dollars
to player too. If player who accepts the three bucks,
they both get to keep their share of the money.
If she rejects the offer, neither gets anything. And Zack's
general findings were that the more money test subjects received,
the higher their oxytocin levels, and the higher their oxytocin levels,
(13:27):
the more they reciprocated. So what you're seeing is an
economy of trust right here. And that's why it's really
interesting to him as a neuroeconomist to see how this
is operating, um just at a dollar and cents level. Now,
they're also what five of the population who barely produce
any of this oxytocin at all. Yeah, they're not trusting anyone.
(13:49):
They're not gonna get anything out of that hug. Well,
Zach Paul Zack sort of have to clingly refer to
them as the sociopaths and the psychopath when in that
case so that they may be they may actually response
seemed to respond well to the hug. They might have
to have figured it out, figured out how to fake
it right, right right, But they're probably not gonna be
full of a lot of empathy. Um, they're not maybe
(14:11):
going to be so much into trusting one another or um,
really invested in trusting at all, and they're not really
probably going to be concerned with your welfare. So but
this is the small amount of the population, right five um,
And there's another factor here that dilutes oxytocin's production testosterone.
(14:33):
Oh okay, yeah yeah, which maybe why men have such
a hard time sharing, right or hugging. Um. But this
is the good news for for all you x wires.
I mean, you can you can hug all day long
and produce much more oxytocin, so sort of vanquish the
effects of your testosterone, which by the way, is ten
(14:54):
times higher in men than women. It also makes me
makes me think of like sporting events where which general
like another weird thing about like like men and their
their their their physical distance from each other. You know,
you'll see a sports and situation where it's like if
if you just scored a goal, uh, then like hugging
is totally okay. Like pretty much anything short of like
(15:14):
just making out on the field, it's all right because
it's just like like, scored a goal, come in here
for a hug, you know kind of thing. It's it's
like totally seen that sort of leg humping thing too. Going,
So I wonder if that itt us like the testosterone
is so high that I don't know. Well, there's also
a bonding moment. It's a bonding moment and and U
it's a social context that allows Yeah, it's like weird contact.
(15:37):
It's kind of like the it's like it's like the
slap on the bat. So it's like this is a
very masculine thing we're doing. Um. And but and if
you just scored a goal on a professional sports team,
it's like, that's that's the that's all the slap on
the back you need. That's like, yeah, you know, I
think that's important to just to note that, yeah, there's
a lot of science behind this in the way that
we behave, but there's also a social contract that we
(15:58):
all have signed on some level, so some of the
is dictating our behavior. Um. But you know, in talking
about gender, it is interesting to note that women actually
benefit a lot more from hugs than men do. And
this is from a University of North Carolina study. Researchers
found that women recorded greater reductions in blood pressure than
men after hugs with their patients their partners. They both
(16:18):
had blood pressure reductions, but women much more so, and
they had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which again,
this is another great benefit of hugging. Not only do
you have oxytocin flowing, but oxytocin is going to inhibit cortisol,
and cortisol is something that can make us crazy, right,
get really stressed out, we can't sleep well, so on
and so forth. And this they think is really helpful
(16:41):
in um promoting good cardiac health and women. I feel
like a like a lot of this also eliminates like
if if you're in a situation where a hug is
going to happen, like it's good to remind yourself. But
even though, um like, even though you might not be
getting much out of this hug, and this hug might
be an awkward situation for you, it's like this other
person is going to get like an oxytocin rush, Like,
(17:01):
do not deny them. There, they're they're a drug there, right, Yeah. Yeah,
And actually there's there's a point that we'll talk about
that about whether or not you're hard wired, um to
to be a hugger. Um. But we'll talk about that.
We'll talk about chimps, and we will talk about co work.
Shots bright after this break. All right, we're back. So hugging,
(17:24):
um humane hug by the way, Oh you're welcome. Yeah,
I mean it was a split second, but still it
was a hug. Yeah. And there were two microphones between us,
but you know it still counts. Yeah. Do other animals hug? Yes? Yeah? Great?
Eight chimpanzees, um, actually hug. There is a researcher by
the name of Felippo o Really of Liverpool, John John
(17:44):
Moores University in the UK, and he and his colleagues
observe two adult chimps in nearby Chester Zoo for twenty
one months and what they what he found is that
following a fight between two individual chimps, the chimp on
the receiving end of the aggression tends to been more
time scratching and grooming itself. And these are activities that
indicate a lot of stress, right, they're trying to work
(18:06):
it out. Um, the self attention this, you know, grooming
of themselves drops by nearly half if another chimp offers
a hand. How we do that and embrace or other
friendly contact within a minute after the conflict. Okay, yeah,
Well I've you know, I've seen pictures of chimps hugging.
But I always thought either they were doing it, a
they were just doing it for the calendars, or be
(18:29):
it was the moment before the teeth sank it, you know, yeah,
all right, right, just trying to trick your opponent there. Um, yeah,
I mean it's there's also a famous video of two
chimps emerging from cages like after thirty years and and
seeing sun light for the first time, and it's really
it's actually a very moving video hugging each other and celebrating.
(18:52):
So we know that they're very social animals. We know
that we share done a percent of their DNA, so
it's not a huge surprise that they would do this
as well. So is it is it hardwired into us
the need to hug or is it just I mean,
how much how much of it is ultimately in our
genes and how much of it is it it's just, Oh,
I was born into a society or a family where
I'm in a situation where hugging is the norm. Well
(19:13):
that that's interesting because the chimp study they definitely said
that it helps to support the hypothesis that um constellation
embracing reduces stress, which we know really rereaks havoc our
immune systems. Right, So there's this idea that it could
help to bolster our health. Um. And you know, to
what extent is it hardwired? In the past we'd say, well,
(19:34):
that's that's hard to say, you know, it's it's probably
just all behavioral and nothing else. Um. But empathy in
the form of oxytocin receptors appears to be hardwired genetically.
So you could be doubly endowed with oxytocin receptor genes UM,
and your social behavior would move a lot more towards
empathy and positive emotions, which we could make you a hugger. Right.
(19:56):
Shelly Taylor, she's the u c L. U c L,
a psychologist identified the tend and befriend response, says that
the gene produces the oxytucin receptor is responsible for influencing
self esteem, optimism, in a sense of mastery and at
a particular location. The receptor gene has two versions, an
(20:16):
A variant and a G variant, And if you have
a variant, you have an increased sensitivity to stress. By
the way, you have poor social skills and worse mental
health outcomes. But if you have that g that obviously
helps to negate some of that um. That G receptor
is actually gonna help in terms of your self esteem
and mastery. Some people have two G variants, and that
(20:40):
is what makes them doubly oxytocin friendly. So they are
super huggers. They are they are hug junkies, they are
hug machines, right, well, I mean, well that's that's the
conclusion you could draw from that. Those are the people
who are getting the biggest bang for their buck when
they get a hug, right, like their oxytuition's flowing. So
those might be the people, uh, the you know, the
cable town executives of the world who are giving you
(21:03):
the big bear hugs that linger forever and you know
it's just an awkward void of hugging. Well, I can
also imagine just like like there's like on a purely
physical level, like the hug is kind of like like
oh you you can see there's a company then where
it's like, oh, you're feeling kind of down, let me
protect you with my body. You know, there's a there's
a there's a sense of that to the activity as well. Yeah,
(21:25):
and you know there are some people who hypothesize that
The reason that we have a three second hug that
that's sort of the norm, is that, you know, back
in the day, you wouldn't want to linger for more
than three seconds because if you were engaged in a
hug at saber tooth tiger would come out of the
while and tear you down shreds Now, does that seem
like it's you know, that evolutionary science probably gone a
(21:46):
little bit um heywire, maybe with that theory. Maybe maybe not.
I don't know, Like I've never the cat is never well,
the cat does get kind of irritated. If my wife
and I are hugging for too long, she could become like, hey,
what's up. That's just because she's shows. She's like, hey,
get that oxytope flowing over here? Yet, Well, then I
try to hug the cat and she hates it so well,
(22:06):
little cats generally don't like to be trapped and hugged,
and I mean she likes to send them my shoulders.
So yeah, that's good. And we already know to just
from our podcast on Dogs Dog Really Love You, that
your dog is actually releasing oxytocin when you pet your
dog and just looking at your at a dog can
can can create oxytocin. That's why we love those buggers
so much. Right, Um, here's a question for you. Would
(22:29):
you ever attend a cuddle workshop? Oh? Yes, they had these,
even that you're trying to improve, I've I've found these interesting.
Um probably, I mean yeah, sure, I mean I could
probably use it more than a lot of people. You know, Um,
you know any kind of like I feel like to
(22:51):
you know, to a certain extent. Like sometimes in you know,
the class we're we're asked to do things with a partner,
and generally my wife is there, so she's my yoka
partner in those situations. But never been a time or
two where I've had to like help like another yoga
we're taking terms with another yoga partner where it's like
I'm helping somebody else do a headstand and then they're
helping me to a headstand or doing some sort of
a you know, do you start hugging them during their
(23:12):
heads No? No, I don't start hugging them because that
would be weird. But but but no, but just like it,
being forced to um into a situation where you're physically
closer to a stranger, like like it it's like the
trust sort of begins to well up a little bit
in certain barriers, um sort of breakdown you know. So yeah,
I would. If there were a hug class and I
(23:32):
have the time to take it, I would. I would
give it a shot. Sure. Well. Also, what if you
were doubly endowed with that G variant, right, and you
were just hug starved, maybe you would go to a workshop, right?
And why not? It would be like going to a
place with your hook up where it's just like as
many hugs as you can take. It would be literally
a love festum. British Heart Foundation researchers have demonstrated links
(23:54):
between a positive emotional state like happiness and low levels
of cortisol in that stress forrmone. So, um, it's somewhat
of a surprise to me that these workshops have sprung
up in London because I don't normally think of, um,
you know the British is being a bunch of huggers.
Well no they're they're not. And I think that's why
(24:15):
that's why they have this is because they realized, like
because I was, I was mentioning um, like even in
British society, society like the Victorian era, like that was
like a big period of you will hug nothing except
in the maybe in the privacy of your own home. Um,
like some some of the materials I was I was reading. Uh,
there was a really cool article about hugging, male hugging
and male affection male kissing in a two thousand and
(24:37):
sixth article in The Scotsman, and its stemmed from an
instant where a queen and in Prince Philip. The Queen
and Prince Philip greeted Charles and Camilla at the opening
of the Welsh Assembly ended up the ladies. They kind
of bumped hats and the Duke of Edinburgh gave his
son a firm kiss on both cheeks, and everyone was
kind of like, whoa there. You know, it's because these
(24:58):
are supposed to be supposed to be then the stiffest
of the stiff upper lips here, and they're they're engaging
in a little visible public acts of like male male affection. Yeah, yeah, well,
I mean it's it's a it's a tricky road. So
I think they've woke up, like like hopefully maybe some
of our English or Londoner listeners will pipe in on this,
but I think there's been you know, they've woken up
(25:19):
and they'd be like, hey, we've we've been kind of
been uptight for a little bit. Let's we have a
we're open to a wider world, We're open to all
these different cultural influences, and maybe we need to lighten
up a little bit and uh and actually literally embrace
each other. Now, there was that faux paw and an outcry.
Actually when Michelle Obama put her arm around the Queen's
waist and a sort of half embrace, you were like,
(25:43):
you don't touch the queen. Yeah, Well, see that's interesting
because that that's another thing that varies, like physical touches
varies varies so much like I believe, um, when I
was in Thailand, I remember reading in the guide book
they said that like it's totally like for for like
an like an older dude to put like his hand
on the side, like touch the side of like a
(26:03):
youth or boy, like that's like the total like normal thing,
whereas of course touching somebody on the head, that's that's insulting. Well,
and I do understand where the cuddle workshops would would
um have a place. And the only thing is, and
I've only seen one clip, so mind you this is
um a very narrow perspective that I have of it
so far. But the Cuddle workshop that I saw that
(26:25):
was conducted in London, it was a three hour event
which culminated in what it looked to me like a
human pile of worms, all sort of linked together, stroking
each other's arms and hugging. I mean, you might want
to call it a hug orgy. I mean fully clothed,
of course, and it made me really uncomfortable. I have
(26:47):
to say. I remember taking some acting classes in college
and we would do various trust exercises, you know, to
try and get everybody on the same page. And they
would do a thing where everyone would you have to
like lay with your head on the um on the
lap of of the of one person, and then you're
I forget how we were all sort of chained together
in this, but that was really awkward because they ended
(27:07):
up like laying my head on the crotch, like the
back of my head on the crotch of this other
person in the acting class, and like and and she
she was just kind of like clamped up. She didn't
say anything, and that the acting started came around and
it's like like you guys, comfortable you should in the like.
So that was really awkward. Yeah, and I will say
that I take this naya exercise class as some martial
(27:27):
arts dance class. It's a great physical activity, but the
instructor was really into, uh, sort of investigating how we
feel with one another. So at the end of the
class she had us crawl around each other like earthworms
crawl over each other, and of course I stepped on
someone's hand. There was, you know, outrage. It's interesting because
people coming into that class that would be thinking, there's
(27:49):
nothing nothing fishy about this. It's it's dance, sure, but
it's martial arts. So why m c A. I'm just
gonna have this normal exercise class. Yeah, yeah, next thing,
you know, laughter, yoga, right yeah, and yeah, right after that,
I'll a sudden there passing around mirrors for all the ladies.
If you know what I'm talking about. Um, if you don't,
don't worry about it. You don't need to know, all right,
(28:10):
So what about what about having machines hug you? Ah? Yes? Um.
There are two fine examples of this, the first of
which is an actual robot. Big surprise. Uh, someone in
the pan has been working on a robot that day
you can hug call the sence roid. Do you want
to describe what this looks like? Um, it looks like
(28:30):
the upper torso of a mannequin tricked out with a
sensor suit. Okay, so it has sort of it looks
a little less and m to me just in terms
of like, you know, it's it's a black sensor suit
we wrapped around average torso of a a mannequin. So it's
you know, from the get go, it doesn't exactly look like,
oh man, this is a great hug machine. Uh. And
(28:51):
then the person who is engaging with the mannequin and
the human is wearing a vest that interacts with it.
And there's when they when they or act the pressure yeah,
between their connection is triggered and it feels like a hug.
But I wrong with that except the video of it,
(29:11):
the demonstration, it looks like the guy was kind of uh,
sort of molesting it only with his hands, I mean
in his arms obviously, but um, it was very aggressive
like he was just sort of attacking this mannequin. Well,
he's learning, right, I mean, if you're hugging I'm you're
hugging a robot, either a your your heart or maybe
a hug junkie and you just can't get it. It
(29:34):
was a total hug junkie. Okay. But my other theory
would be they don't really know how to hug and
they're using this robot as an attempt to learn, in
which case you might not really know what you're doing
and there might be some some inappropriate uh um, you know,
fondling of the robots back or right, and you don't
have to worry so much about offending it, right. Um.
But I mean again, this guy is getting the high
(29:56):
I guess you could say of hugging and all of
the health benefits of hugging you ro So in the future,
what are we going to have a Roxy the hugging robot?
Do you think Roxy um worst robot ever? Yeah, it's
an interesting question, especially you know, we've given the podcast
we record in the past about the future of like
home care providers, robotic home care providers, and these are
(30:18):
machines who are gonna be living in a physical environment
with us. They're going to be a part of our lives. Um,
to what degree do we end up having that bond
of trust and to what extends should we encourage that
bond of trust through hugging, because I mean some people
might say, oh, I can't imagine the robot robot coming
in for a hug on me. That would be like
that would be a little creepy. But maybe not. Maybe
(30:39):
it would. It would build a bond where you have
of actual I mean, at least on one side care
um the robot. Probably not. That's what I was gonna say, Like,
by the time we're eighty or ninety and we we
have our robot helpers, maybe that is a feature that
we want. How's that help? Thatt? If that? Why not? Um? Still,
the the I guess the video of the sky attack
(31:00):
the mannequ and I shouldn't say attacking, but just vigorous hugging.
Vigorous hugging going on seemed a little bit menacing, at
least for the for the mannequin that I'm bestowing all
these human qualities on. And of course, the other hug
machine that comes to mind would be a Temple grand
And hug machine. Um. I know. And if you're not
familiar with with Temple Grandon, um, then a she has
(31:21):
an excellent tied talk. Uh and then be they made
the movie Temple Grand And where Clare Daan's plays. There
was an HBO TV movie and it's it's really quite
good and she's and she's excellent in it as Temple Grand,
she's brilliant, she's autistic. She revolutionized animal science. Um, and
she was thinking like all right, she like she was
totally like, yeah, slaughtering animals, that's you know, she had
(31:43):
no problem with that. She you know, she was very
much a cowgirl herself. But she was like, there's no
need for it to be cruel, like, there's no need
for these animals to be stressed out. And you don't
want to stressed out animal in there from just a
just a purely utilitarian frame of mind, like even if
you don't care about what how the animal actually feels,
you want that you don't want the meat to be
all drawn up and uh and tight. Right, that's true.
(32:06):
If if the muscles contract, then you're gonna get a
tough kind of meat there. Um. But yeah, she used
her own anxiety in her own empathy toward animals actually,
which is interesting because she is autistic um to to
uh sort of imagine what that experience would be and
help revolutionize that so that animals when when they were
actually going to be slaughtered, were a lot calmer. Um.
(32:28):
But she also, again dealing with her own anxieties, created
the squeeze machine. She actually wrote about her experiences in
the journal Child and Adolescents psycho Pharmacology, and she says,
as a child, I crave to feel the comfort of
being held, but I would pull away when people hugged me.
When hugged, an overwhelming tidal wave of sensation flowed through me.
(32:49):
At times, I preferred such intense stimulation to the point
of pain rather than accept ordinary hugs. At puberty, anxiety
and nervousness. Nervousness made me feel as though I was
calm sently in a state of stage fright. While the
nature of this anxiety was not diagnosed at the time,
they have been retrospectively diagnosed as panic attacks. So at
the age of eighteen, she constructed this squeeze machine to
(33:12):
help calm herself down. And um, if you haven't seen it,
it's it's kind of easy to imagine her crawling into
like an iron maiden, but it's it's not. It's more
like panels that that press in when she pulls on
levers or strings. Right, Yeah, she's got a lever that
that can control the pressure um per square inch, and
she said that using the machine for fifteen minutes would
(33:33):
reduce her anxiety for up to forty five to sixty
minutes UH and then the relaxing effect was maximized if
the machine was used twice a day. And gradually her
tolerance of being held by the squeeze machine grew, and
also eventually her tolerance of being hugged and touched by
other people grew through this machine. And she did really
(33:55):
interesting studies with this machine on herself, on other college
students and also animals and across the boards. You found
that this machine, because of this um there's deep touch pressure,
it actually did the same sort of thing that a
hug would do, which is to release that oxytocin and
to reduce cortisol. Well, I've I've never used a hug
(34:18):
machine per se that I wish we had. When it works,
we should. We should talk to Tony. I'm pucking one in.
It's like the office needs a hug machine. It does
remind me though, some things in yoga that are like like,
for instance, when you roll into a ball, you know
and sort of on your child's what child's boat is
what pos as well, when you're you're facing down and
then also to to some extent eagle pose where you're
(34:39):
wrapping your limbs up like I always find the lower
portion of the eagle where you you intertwine your legs
and sort of bring her in the front of your
foot around behind your ankle like that. To me, that
feels really comforting. And I'm not I'm not really sure why.
I don't know. You just kind of feel like you're
hugging yourself. It's kind of like you're hugging yourself. Yeah,
it's like you're you're you're kind of like tight and compact,
and you're there's a a sense of comfort in itself well,
(35:01):
and it's it's interesting because it is that deep pressure
that is really important because if you were just to
lightly stroke your skin or someone else's, then that would
excite your nervous system. But somehow that deep pressure is
what you need, in that constant deep pressure to really
tell your your nervous system to calm down. This also
reminds me time massage at times feels a little bit
like it's kind of like being hugged. It's like a
(35:24):
cross for anyone who's has never had time massage. It's
it's a rather different animal than um sort of a
typical Western massage therapy where there's, you know, where they
generally have some like soft music playing. It's a lot
of more like a continued pressure kind of stuff. But um,
but with the time massage, it's like a lot of
like alternating pressure and to a certain extent, it feels
(35:46):
like someone is It's like a cross between somebody giving
you a massage, someone putting you in a wrestling hold,
and at times someone kind of hugging you right right,
So yeah, there you go. I mean, I love this
hugging thing because you know, not only can you just
use it on a day to day basis, you're you're
hugging your significant other, family members, you get a big
high off of it, but you can also manipulate others
(36:07):
with your hugs. Right. You can get them in a
bear hug, in a wrestling hold, and if they're inconsolable,
you know, twenty seconds later they're just going to be
like a babe in your arms. Yeah. I should mention
another disaster hug that I encountered, and that was one
where I was like talking about hug awkwardness with some
people at a at a party and uh, and so
I was kind of like the challenge. The gaantlet was
laid down, so I needed to actually hug this guy.
(36:30):
So my friend Matt. So so i go in for
a hug on Matt and I'm like, all right, let's
do it. Let's just do a big manly hug right here.
And right at that moment, somebody tried to cut between
us and that with like a beverage in their hand,
and so they were smashed between us as we attempted
to hug, and their drink fell to the to the
floor and shattered and it was very traumatic. Dude, that's
some bad hug karma. Yeah, that way it was exactly.
(36:51):
It was bad hug karma. I should point out that
I do not have a hug awkwardness with my wife.
I do really enjoy hugging my wife. Well, no, because
you're doing I'm doing twenty seconds or more. I'm yeah.
And I should also mention, just to call back, we
did a mystery Box episode and in that I made
a I talked about having been given a virginity box
(37:12):
when I was in the junior high and I was
supposed to you're supposed to hold on that for long,
and and I mentioned the people. It's like, hey, if
you're out there and you are a virgin, you know,
and no matter what your age is, uh like, don't
freak out about it, like it's no big deal. Like
sex is no big deal. I of course m was
referring to just the social pressure that is often put
on people to have sex, and was in no way
(37:33):
implying that that sex itself is no big deal, especially
as far as my my significant others concerned. Oh no,
I mean, yeah, we all know. Sex it's a big deal, right, yeah,
driving force behind pretty much everything we do every day. Yeah,
like that after my wife, I listen to this, like
it's not a little weird when you said, hey, don't
worry about sex, is no big deal. So just wanted
to me, I go, what you're saying. You were just
(37:55):
telling the kids out there, if it hasn't happened yet,
no big deal. Yeah, don't stress out about it. That's
my point. So hey, speaking of the kids out there,
I wonder if any of them have sent us some mail.
Let's call the robot for that's coming in for a hug,
all right, here's a little email from our listener Allison
out of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and right and says,
(38:18):
I run a computer lab and while tiding up the
lab during December exam period, I came across some interesting
graffiti on one of the desks. All week, we've been
hosting exams for the lab sections of e d D
one oh one, a class aimed at first year students
who want to learn how to study effectively for test,
how to improve their learning, etcetera. Which is why I
couldn't help but laugh when I came across very faintly
(38:40):
written crib notes on the desktop underneath a keyboard. Someone
took the time to cheat on a test about how
to take tests effectively. My coworker and I joked about
putting up signs in the lab, and today I made
it a reality. You see, this afternoon was the first
lab section of this semester's e d D one oh
one intake. I made sure to print extras in full
color and post them all around both computer lads, just
(39:03):
in case the new students needed an extra reminder. The
photo was difficult to take due to the lighting in
the room and because it was written so faintly, but
I'm sure the point is fairly clear. The text is
a tweet I made after finding the Scripples in December,
and she sent us an amusing photo of it. I
love the podcast. I always eagerly await new ones to
add to my queue alongside other wonderful Agent of You podcasts.
(39:27):
I love that. And we talked about that in the
cheating episode, about how when you put a mirror up
to someone um to their behavior, that's usually going to
stem that sort of transgression that they're about to make right,
so that hopefully that will be effective. We do know, though,
if you have someone sign a contract or some sort
of ethics code of ethics, that that's even more effective,
(39:49):
which was really interesting to learn about cheating. Yeah, I've
definitely been in some classes where they did that, where
they're like, here's the here's the code of honor, sign
it and then participate in my class and then you
didn't cheat. I don't think so. I don't remember what
clapp it was, but probably not. Um, you're not a cheater,
your lover, all right, I guess. Um. Well, anyway, if
(40:10):
if anything went out there has something they want to
share with us. You can find us on Facebook and
you can find us on Twitter. Imagine that on Twitter,
we are blow the Minded. On Facebook, you know, you
can just look for stuff to blow the mind and
we are there. And you can also send us an
email at blow the Mind at how stuff work dot com.
(40:38):
Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to Blow
your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
are you a hugger? Do you hug? Are you one
of these? Are you a head machine? Are you the
type of person who walks into the room and it's
hugs all around, or are you then have a person
(00:25):
when a huger walks into the room, you retreat to
the corner. I'm really more of a groper. I'm kidding,
I'm I'm not a gropper. Um. I'm definitely someone who
if it looks like someone wants to hug or initiating
a hug, then I'm all for the hug. But I
usually kind of check out someone's body language because there's
(00:45):
nothing worse than going in for a hug and you
get the awkward you knowess of the I don't know,
you get an elbow in your face or something along
those lines. What about you, Well, I am I am
an awkward hugger. I've sort of have to come. I've come.
I improved over the years, but I have to come
to realize that I am an awkward person when it
comes to the social dynamics of hugging. So in what
(01:06):
way are you, Well, I grew uh, I kind of
grew up in a well, I mean my my my
household was not like a super huggy kind of environment,
and my mom has and still has this, uh, this
hug variant that's uh that we referred to as the
side hug, where instead of it being like a full
on front hug, it's like she'll come up and kind
of like put an arm around like she's posing for
(01:27):
a photo with you. And I ended up inheriting this, uh,
this side hug, and I'll still catch myself doing it
or or I've I've kind of evolved where I have
like a a hybrid that is half side hug, half
front hug. Um all awkwardness though, um, especially if I'm
around somebody's really into hugging. Um, well, I'm trying to
figure out what is worse, Like a side hug, you know,
(01:50):
or someone who's just like sort of merry glands crushing you. Well,
we'll see see that that also that that dives down
to another issue here with hugging. It won't because I mean,
like even as when I was younger. Like a hug,
especially you're hugging a lady, it's I mean, yeah, well
they have they have bosoms, right, and then and you're
(02:11):
gonna have to hug into those and like that's kind
of weird. H It's true, it's going to be so.
So there's that. And then here's another thing that is
that has actually come up recently. Um, I was we
had some some friends over right and they'd come over
for dinner and we we had a little wine, and
then it was it was time for everybody to say
(02:31):
there goodbyes. So we went to hug goodbye, and I
went to hug my my friend kipt goodbye. And there's
that weird like there's this weird moment of like, all right,
I'm gonna hug this person. I was going for a
front hug, come on, like you know, because I'm trying
to put yeah, I'm trying to put my side hug
experiences behind me. And then there's this last minute confusion
that was probably intensified a little bye by the wine
(02:53):
in my system. Um, and which way our head's gonna go,
because you know, a head has to go this way,
another head has ago this way, and uh, and then
the hug is fully locked. Um, but I I kind
of like went to go one direction and then I
I panicked and went the other direction. And then afterward,
I'm like, oh, my goodness, she probably thinks I made
a pass at her. She thinks I went in, probably
(03:15):
think thinks I went in for a kiss on on
what was already a pretty awkward hug. And so I
was like, I was paranoid about it for days. I'm like, oh,
she probably thinks I'm horrible. Um, you males in in
your hugging anxiety, hugging each other or hugging ladies, and
they're there. Well, I'm glad you brought it up, because
the the male hug, the male on male hug um
(03:38):
is another very interesting topic of discussion, and I've I've
seen it. I've seen it referred to in various uh uh,
there's various terminology for the sort of masculine hug. After
It's been called a pound shake, a one armed hug,
a dude hug, a homie hug, a shug, a hetero hug,
a bro grab, a bro hug, a thug hug, a
(04:00):
man hug, a hip hop hug. So why do you
even have to determine that, you know in the first place.
That's kind of cracks me out. Well, um, I mean
a lot of it. I mean it's with with hugging
in general, but especially with male hugging, Like it's gonna
vary depending on culture. Um. I just think it's funny.
It's like women don't run around going X to the
fourth hug. Yeah, I mean, like, well, if you go
(04:21):
back in time and like man and man kisses is
like that not that big of a deal. Say, you
know Roman times, uh, early Christian Church. Then it goes
away in the Victorian era. You go you go to
places in countries like France, you go to uh, you
got to Russia, and there's more of a tradition of
of men, you know, given a peck on the cheek.
It's you know, it's not it's a sign of affection
(04:42):
and it does. It's not that's there's not a sexual
connotation to it. Well and certainly in Europe it is. Um.
It is much more intimate to give someone a hug
than a kiss on the cheek on the cheek, right,
And maybe some of that is because you're getting into
someone's space. Um, but that's what we're talking about today,
we're talking about hugs, how important they are, and we're
going to talk about the actual science behind hugs. But
I have more on male hugs to talk about. Uh.
(05:04):
I mean the traditional male hug for those I haven't
seen it. You you sort of bring in the other
person in arms wrapped around, kind of like you're you're
going in for like a pro wrestling bear hug. And
in fact, some people like if one person is one
male is bigger than the other, sometimes they will or
or or as smaller but has a bigger uh you know,
ego about them, they'll actually go for the pick up,
they'll do the they'll do the bear hug lift because
(05:26):
nothing is more more masculine. Uh and and says, this
is not a lovey dovey hug. Let's say nothing that
any sort of a possible souplex. Yeah, um, but but yeah,
you go in generally only the shoulders will be touching,
uh or, that will be the main point of contact.
And then you might even throw in and then when
you squeeze, you'll throw in kind of a kind of
(05:47):
a kind of a move because again it's kind of
like we're we're just men, you know, wrestling man, we
should if only we could butt heads, but we have
to do this stupid hug. And then of course the
back either slap on the back or pounds to the
bat because the pound like a fist is even more masculine.
Then slap to the back, and you do generally do
like three of those, um and and you may or
(06:09):
may not, like I say, throw in an attempted bear hug.
Besides heteronorms, there's actually a reason why you guys may
have this weird awkwardness in embracing each other. And we'll
talk about that in a little bit. You might actually
be hardwired not to be so much full on body huggers.
But have you got any other male on male hugging stories.
(06:32):
Just I should point out that the bear hug is
a pro pro wrestling move where one individual comes into
the front and wraps their arms around the person like
a big hug and squeezes them. And then there's also
a rear bear hug or a reverse bear hug where
the person comes up behind them and and squeezes them,
and and it's supposed to be like a method of
torture in the like in a pro wrestling kind of environment.
(06:53):
But it is it essentially? It is essentially a hug.
So you and I don't hug, but I'm gonna say this,
like you did you give me a little punch in
the shoulder once. Well, that's that's my version of a hug. Um.
But for non huggers. But if you ever do, like
I feel like giving me a hug, please don't break
my phones or you know, toss me through the air. Well,
(07:14):
that's another thing. I have got myself giving the bro hug,
slap or pound, like even when I'm like hugging a
female occasionally, you know, it's like in a moment of panic,
I'll have that in for for no reason. Yeah, I'm
just I'm I'm I'm very scared that you're gonna pull
a wrestling move on Someone's gonna be a hospital visit. Um,
here's an interesting stat The average hug last three seconds.
(07:36):
And this has been called the timing of the human spirit.
Just really yeah, nice and poetic, but there is an
ideal length of a hug, and it's actually twenty seconds.
Really is that? How long is the character in Dirty
Rock that said it's not a hug if it doesn't
last Oh, okay, that this is the uh he is
the like the CEO of Cable Town, which has bought NBC, right,
(07:58):
and he's all about the hugs and family values and
he wants um Walwin's character Jack Geegy to just start hugging.
And Jack can't because he's not hardwired. He's a shark.
He doesn't know how to do that. He says, ten seconds. Okay,
so he was that. He's actually has a pretty uh
um conservative hug there. Yeah, really he should be doubling that.
(08:20):
But he's hugging all day long, so he may for
forgetting um this sort of that you would want to
get out of a hug and what is that? But
why might we start hugging oxytocin? Yeah, so twenty seconds
hugging someone makes oxytocin start flowing from your body. And
we produce oxytosin every day and our blood and our
(08:41):
brain um in various amounts. And it's not just hugging, dancing,
having sex orgasms, U, petting your dogs and the babies.
It's like a huge row in the in the mother
child relationship. Yeah, most people think about it in terms
of breastfeeding or giving birth. Even two helps with the
'aring contractions. So oxytesin is known as the bonding hormone,
(09:04):
and it allows you to establish a deep connection with
other people. I've also seen it called the moral molecule.
The moral molecules not only in mammals, which also occasionally
tear each other limb from limbs, so right, right, so
that we don't tear each other from limb to limb
all the time. This, this wonderful moral molecule is in
us waiting to spring upon others and and hug, hug
(09:25):
it out. Really, I've also just real quick for not
not hugging people. Have a friend Liz, and I remember
her saying, and she may have picked I don't know
if she picked this up somewhere else or if this
is wisdom that emerge from within lives. But she said,
the day a hug is just a strangle that you
haven't finished yet. So well, you know what, there are
some people who use hugs therapeutically. So if you have
(09:48):
someone who is really really upset, uh, you know, they
actually seemed as though they are beyond um consoling if
you if you were to hug them and restrict aim
them and like full body hug for twenty seconds or
more that person actually will calm down. That is how
effective this oxytocin releases via a hug. Oh man, See,
(10:11):
now this totally turns the bear hug in protestling on
its head, Like what if? What if it's effectiveness in
this fictional fighting environment we're not based on I will
squeeze you until you cannot take it anymore, when you
pass out. But what if it was I will squeeze
you until into loving submission, until until loving submission, until
you realize that we're fighting over nothing and that we're
really brothers. Okay, I mean, why don't world leaders do
(10:33):
this right exactly? Mandatory thirty second hugs between all heads
of state. Well, and there are actually hug workshops, and
we'll talk about that in a little while, um, and
why they're fascinating and also sort of uh terrible at
the same time. But let's talk a little bit more
about the oxytocin because it's so interesting in the way
that it operates in our morality, our ability to trust others.
(10:55):
So the big question in understanding anything we do is,
of course, from an evolutionary standpoint, how does it fit in?
How does it make sense? Why would nature select for
hugging well neuroeconomic guru Paul Zach who actually calls himself
the love doctor. He has a lot of people call
themselves a love doctor. It doesn't mean they actually have credentials, No,
(11:16):
it's true, but he actually studies this right, so I
think that you know, out of everybody, he could probably
call himself a love doctor and and really means um.
He has a great talk on ted dot com called trust, morality,
and oxytocin, and he says that this is the hormone
that allows us to feel a sense of trust, and
from an evolutionary science perspective, it's necessary for the propagation
(11:38):
of a species. Okay, and you know there's some people
who have more oxytocin than others, and actually those people
they have found in studies appear more trustworthy. Isn't this
fascinating The people who produce lesser marked No, No, people
who produce more oxetosin just on a regular basis. Um.
(11:58):
You know, if we're in a party, let's a and
you meet someone, you're gonna know within twenty seconds whether
or not this person is feeling trustworthy to you or
probably does feel trustworthy to you, because they're usually pretty
social and uh, they're a little bit more engaged with you, right,
and you have to feel like, oh, I could trust
this person, right, they seem they seem like a good egg. Right.
(12:20):
I'm sure everybody has come away of meeting someone and saying, oh,
you know, that person is like really down on earth
or so on and so forth. That could be their
oxytocin talking. Zach and his researchers conducted a series of
studies involving test subjects watching a film about a boy
who has a brain tumor okay, And the reason why
they did that is they wanted to juice up the
empathy response okay um, which is obviously related to oxytocin.
(12:43):
And then he had subjects play an ultimatum game. The
general idea is that a first person is given a
certain amount of money and told to send some portion
of it to a second person, and they're separated by
computers and nobody knows the identity of one another. The
second person must then decide whether to accept or reject
the first person's offer. So, for example, let's imagine that
(13:04):
player one proposes divide ten dollars by offering three dollars
to player too. If player who accepts the three bucks,
they both get to keep their share of the money.
If she rejects the offer, neither gets anything. And Zack's
general findings were that the more money test subjects received,
the higher their oxytocin levels, and the higher their oxytocin levels,
(13:27):
the more they reciprocated. So what you're seeing is an
economy of trust right here. And that's why it's really
interesting to him as a neuroeconomist to see how this
is operating, um just at a dollar and cents level. Now,
they're also what five of the population who barely produce
any of this oxytocin at all. Yeah, they're not trusting anyone.
(13:49):
They're not gonna get anything out of that hug. Well,
Zach Paul Zack sort of have to clingly refer to
them as the sociopaths and the psychopath when in that
case so that they may be they may actually response
seemed to respond well to the hug. They might have
to have figured it out, figured out how to fake
it right, right right, But they're probably not gonna be
full of a lot of empathy. Um, they're not maybe
(14:11):
going to be so much into trusting one another or um,
really invested in trusting at all, and they're not really
probably going to be concerned with your welfare. So but
this is the small amount of the population, right five um,
And there's another factor here that dilutes oxytocin's production testosterone.
(14:33):
Oh okay, yeah yeah, which maybe why men have such
a hard time sharing, right or hugging. Um. But this
is the good news for for all you x wires.
I mean, you can you can hug all day long
and produce much more oxytocin, so sort of vanquish the
effects of your testosterone, which by the way, is ten
(14:54):
times higher in men than women. It also makes me
makes me think of like sporting events where which general
like another weird thing about like like men and their
their their their physical distance from each other. You know,
you'll see a sports and situation where it's like if
if you just scored a goal, uh, then like hugging
is totally okay. Like pretty much anything short of like
(15:14):
just making out on the field, it's all right because
it's just like like, scored a goal, come in here
for a hug, you know kind of thing. It's it's
like totally seen that sort of leg humping thing too. Going,
So I wonder if that itt us like the testosterone
is so high that I don't know. Well, there's also
a bonding moment. It's a bonding moment and and U
it's a social context that allows Yeah, it's like weird contact.
(15:37):
It's kind of like the it's like it's like the
slap on the bat. So it's like this is a
very masculine thing we're doing. Um. And but and if
you just scored a goal on a professional sports team,
it's like, that's that's the that's all the slap on
the back you need. That's like, yeah, you know, I
think that's important to just to note that, yeah, there's
a lot of science behind this in the way that
we behave, but there's also a social contract that we
(15:58):
all have signed on some level, so some of the
is dictating our behavior. Um. But you know, in talking
about gender, it is interesting to note that women actually
benefit a lot more from hugs than men do. And
this is from a University of North Carolina study. Researchers
found that women recorded greater reductions in blood pressure than
men after hugs with their patients their partners. They both
(16:18):
had blood pressure reductions, but women much more so, and
they had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which again,
this is another great benefit of hugging. Not only do
you have oxytocin flowing, but oxytocin is going to inhibit cortisol,
and cortisol is something that can make us crazy, right,
get really stressed out, we can't sleep well, so on
and so forth. And this they think is really helpful
(16:41):
in um promoting good cardiac health and women. I feel
like a like a lot of this also eliminates like
if if you're in a situation where a hug is
going to happen, like it's good to remind yourself. But
even though, um like, even though you might not be
getting much out of this hug, and this hug might
be an awkward situation for you, it's like this other
person is going to get like an oxytocin rush, Like,
(17:01):
do not deny them. There, they're they're a drug there, right, Yeah. Yeah,
And actually there's there's a point that we'll talk about
that about whether or not you're hard wired, um to
to be a hugger. Um. But we'll talk about that.
We'll talk about chimps, and we will talk about co work.
Shots bright after this break. All right, we're back. So hugging,
(17:24):
um humane hug by the way, Oh you're welcome. Yeah,
I mean it was a split second, but still it
was a hug. Yeah. And there were two microphones between us,
but you know it still counts. Yeah. Do other animals hug? Yes? Yeah? Great?
Eight chimpanzees, um, actually hug. There is a researcher by
the name of Felippo o Really of Liverpool, John John
(17:44):
Moores University in the UK, and he and his colleagues
observe two adult chimps in nearby Chester Zoo for twenty
one months and what they what he found is that
following a fight between two individual chimps, the chimp on
the receiving end of the aggression tends to been more
time scratching and grooming itself. And these are activities that
indicate a lot of stress, right, they're trying to work
(18:06):
it out. Um, the self attention this, you know, grooming
of themselves drops by nearly half if another chimp offers
a hand. How we do that and embrace or other
friendly contact within a minute after the conflict. Okay, yeah,
Well I've you know, I've seen pictures of chimps hugging.
But I always thought either they were doing it, a
they were just doing it for the calendars, or be
(18:29):
it was the moment before the teeth sank it, you know, yeah,
all right, right, just trying to trick your opponent there. Um, yeah,
I mean it's there's also a famous video of two
chimps emerging from cages like after thirty years and and
seeing sun light for the first time, and it's really
it's actually a very moving video hugging each other and celebrating.
(18:52):
So we know that they're very social animals. We know
that we share done a percent of their DNA, so
it's not a huge surprise that they would do this
as well. So is it is it hardwired into us
the need to hug or is it just I mean,
how much how much of it is ultimately in our
genes and how much of it is it it's just, Oh,
I was born into a society or a family where
I'm in a situation where hugging is the norm. Well
(19:13):
that that's interesting because the chimp study they definitely said
that it helps to support the hypothesis that um constellation
embracing reduces stress, which we know really rereaks havoc our
immune systems. Right, So there's this idea that it could
help to bolster our health. Um. And you know, to
what extent is it hardwired? In the past we'd say, well,
(19:34):
that's that's hard to say, you know, it's it's probably
just all behavioral and nothing else. Um. But empathy in
the form of oxytocin receptors appears to be hardwired genetically.
So you could be doubly endowed with oxytocin receptor genes UM,
and your social behavior would move a lot more towards
empathy and positive emotions, which we could make you a hugger. Right.
(19:56):
Shelly Taylor, she's the u c L. U c L,
a psychologist identified the tend and befriend response, says that
the gene produces the oxytucin receptor is responsible for influencing
self esteem, optimism, in a sense of mastery and at
a particular location. The receptor gene has two versions, an
(20:16):
A variant and a G variant, And if you have
a variant, you have an increased sensitivity to stress. By
the way, you have poor social skills and worse mental
health outcomes. But if you have that g that obviously
helps to negate some of that um. That G receptor
is actually gonna help in terms of your self esteem
and mastery. Some people have two G variants, and that
(20:40):
is what makes them doubly oxytocin friendly. So they are
super huggers. They are they are hug junkies, they are
hug machines, right, well, I mean, well that's that's the
conclusion you could draw from that. Those are the people
who are getting the biggest bang for their buck when
they get a hug, right, like their oxytuition's flowing. So
those might be the people, uh, the you know, the
cable town executives of the world who are giving you
(21:03):
the big bear hugs that linger forever and you know
it's just an awkward void of hugging. Well, I can
also imagine just like like there's like on a purely
physical level, like the hug is kind of like like
oh you you can see there's a company then where
it's like, oh, you're feeling kind of down, let me
protect you with my body. You know, there's a there's
a there's a sense of that to the activity as well. Yeah,
(21:25):
and you know there are some people who hypothesize that
The reason that we have a three second hug that
that's sort of the norm, is that, you know, back
in the day, you wouldn't want to linger for more
than three seconds because if you were engaged in a
hug at saber tooth tiger would come out of the
while and tear you down shreds Now, does that seem
like it's you know, that evolutionary science probably gone a
(21:46):
little bit um heywire, maybe with that theory. Maybe maybe not.
I don't know, Like I've never the cat is never well,
the cat does get kind of irritated. If my wife
and I are hugging for too long, she could become like, hey,
what's up. That's just because she's shows. She's like, hey,
get that oxytope flowing over here? Yet, Well, then I
try to hug the cat and she hates it so well,
(22:06):
little cats generally don't like to be trapped and hugged,
and I mean she likes to send them my shoulders.
So yeah, that's good. And we already know to just
from our podcast on Dogs Dog Really Love You, that
your dog is actually releasing oxytocin when you pet your
dog and just looking at your at a dog can
can can create oxytocin. That's why we love those buggers
so much. Right, Um, here's a question for you. Would
(22:29):
you ever attend a cuddle workshop? Oh? Yes, they had these,
even that you're trying to improve, I've I've found these interesting.
Um probably, I mean yeah, sure, I mean I could
probably use it more than a lot of people. You know, Um,
you know any kind of like I feel like to
(22:51):
you know, to a certain extent. Like sometimes in you know,
the class we're we're asked to do things with a partner,
and generally my wife is there, so she's my yoka
partner in those situations. But never been a time or
two where I've had to like help like another yoga
we're taking terms with another yoga partner where it's like
I'm helping somebody else do a headstand and then they're
helping me to a headstand or doing some sort of
a you know, do you start hugging them during their
(23:12):
heads No? No, I don't start hugging them because that
would be weird. But but but no, but just like it,
being forced to um into a situation where you're physically
closer to a stranger, like like it it's like the
trust sort of begins to well up a little bit
in certain barriers, um sort of breakdown you know. So yeah,
I would. If there were a hug class and I
(23:32):
have the time to take it, I would. I would
give it a shot. Sure. Well. Also, what if you
were doubly endowed with that G variant, right, and you
were just hug starved, maybe you would go to a workshop, right?
And why not? It would be like going to a
place with your hook up where it's just like as
many hugs as you can take. It would be literally
a love festum. British Heart Foundation researchers have demonstrated links
(23:54):
between a positive emotional state like happiness and low levels
of cortisol in that stress forrmone. So, um, it's somewhat
of a surprise to me that these workshops have sprung
up in London because I don't normally think of, um,
you know the British is being a bunch of huggers.
Well no they're they're not. And I think that's why
(24:15):
that's why they have this is because they realized, like
because I was, I was mentioning um, like even in
British society, society like the Victorian era, like that was
like a big period of you will hug nothing except
in the maybe in the privacy of your own home. Um,
like some some of the materials I was I was reading. Uh,
there was a really cool article about hugging, male hugging
and male affection male kissing in a two thousand and
(24:37):
sixth article in The Scotsman, and its stemmed from an
instant where a queen and in Prince Philip. The Queen
and Prince Philip greeted Charles and Camilla at the opening
of the Welsh Assembly ended up the ladies. They kind
of bumped hats and the Duke of Edinburgh gave his
son a firm kiss on both cheeks, and everyone was
kind of like, whoa there. You know, it's because these
(24:58):
are supposed to be supposed to be then the stiffest
of the stiff upper lips here, and they're they're engaging
in a little visible public acts of like male male affection. Yeah, yeah, well,
I mean it's it's a it's a tricky road. So
I think they've woke up, like like hopefully maybe some
of our English or Londoner listeners will pipe in on this,
but I think there's been you know, they've woken up
(25:19):
and they'd be like, hey, we've we've been kind of
been uptight for a little bit. Let's we have a
we're open to a wider world, We're open to all
these different cultural influences, and maybe we need to lighten
up a little bit and uh and actually literally embrace
each other. Now, there was that faux paw and an outcry.
Actually when Michelle Obama put her arm around the Queen's
waist and a sort of half embrace, you were like,
(25:43):
you don't touch the queen. Yeah, Well, see that's interesting
because that that's another thing that varies, like physical touches
varies varies so much like I believe, um, when I
was in Thailand, I remember reading in the guide book
they said that like it's totally like for for like
an like an older dude to put like his hand
on the side, like touch the side of like a
(26:03):
youth or boy, like that's like the total like normal thing,
whereas of course touching somebody on the head, that's that's insulting. Well,
and I do understand where the cuddle workshops would would
um have a place. And the only thing is, and
I've only seen one clip, so mind you this is
um a very narrow perspective that I have of it
so far. But the Cuddle workshop that I saw that
(26:25):
was conducted in London, it was a three hour event
which culminated in what it looked to me like a
human pile of worms, all sort of linked together, stroking
each other's arms and hugging. I mean, you might want
to call it a hug orgy. I mean fully clothed,
of course, and it made me really uncomfortable. I have
(26:47):
to say. I remember taking some acting classes in college
and we would do various trust exercises, you know, to
try and get everybody on the same page. And they
would do a thing where everyone would you have to
like lay with your head on the um on the
lap of of the of one person, and then you're
I forget how we were all sort of chained together
in this, but that was really awkward because they ended
(27:07):
up like laying my head on the crotch, like the
back of my head on the crotch of this other
person in the acting class, and like and and she
she was just kind of like clamped up. She didn't
say anything, and that the acting started came around and
it's like like you guys, comfortable you should in the like.
So that was really awkward. Yeah, and I will say
that I take this naya exercise class as some martial
(27:27):
arts dance class. It's a great physical activity, but the
instructor was really into, uh, sort of investigating how we
feel with one another. So at the end of the
class she had us crawl around each other like earthworms
crawl over each other, and of course I stepped on
someone's hand. There was, you know, outrage. It's interesting because
people coming into that class that would be thinking, there's
(27:49):
nothing nothing fishy about this. It's it's dance, sure, but
it's martial arts. So why m c A. I'm just
gonna have this normal exercise class. Yeah, yeah, next thing,
you know, laughter, yoga, right yeah, and yeah, right after that,
I'll a sudden there passing around mirrors for all the ladies.
If you know what I'm talking about. Um, if you don't,
don't worry about it. You don't need to know, all right,
(28:10):
So what about what about having machines hug you? Ah? Yes? Um.
There are two fine examples of this, the first of
which is an actual robot. Big surprise. Uh, someone in
the pan has been working on a robot that day
you can hug call the sence roid. Do you want
to describe what this looks like? Um, it looks like
(28:30):
the upper torso of a mannequin tricked out with a
sensor suit. Okay, so it has sort of it looks
a little less and m to me just in terms
of like, you know, it's it's a black sensor suit
we wrapped around average torso of a a mannequin. So it's
you know, from the get go, it doesn't exactly look like,
oh man, this is a great hug machine. Uh. And
(28:51):
then the person who is engaging with the mannequin and
the human is wearing a vest that interacts with it.
And there's when they when they or act the pressure yeah,
between their connection is triggered and it feels like a hug.
But I wrong with that except the video of it,
(29:11):
the demonstration, it looks like the guy was kind of uh,
sort of molesting it only with his hands, I mean
in his arms obviously, but um, it was very aggressive
like he was just sort of attacking this mannequin. Well,
he's learning, right, I mean, if you're hugging I'm you're
hugging a robot, either a your your heart or maybe
a hug junkie and you just can't get it. It
(29:34):
was a total hug junkie. Okay. But my other theory
would be they don't really know how to hug and
they're using this robot as an attempt to learn, in
which case you might not really know what you're doing
and there might be some some inappropriate uh um, you know,
fondling of the robots back or right, and you don't
have to worry so much about offending it, right. Um.
But I mean again, this guy is getting the high
(29:56):
I guess you could say of hugging and all of
the health benefits of hugging you ro So in the future,
what are we going to have a Roxy the hugging robot?
Do you think Roxy um worst robot ever? Yeah, it's
an interesting question, especially you know, we've given the podcast
we record in the past about the future of like
home care providers, robotic home care providers, and these are
(30:18):
machines who are gonna be living in a physical environment
with us. They're going to be a part of our lives. Um,
to what degree do we end up having that bond
of trust and to what extends should we encourage that
bond of trust through hugging, because I mean some people
might say, oh, I can't imagine the robot robot coming
in for a hug on me. That would be like
that would be a little creepy. But maybe not. Maybe
(30:39):
it would. It would build a bond where you have
of actual I mean, at least on one side care
um the robot. Probably not. That's what I was gonna say, Like,
by the time we're eighty or ninety and we we
have our robot helpers, maybe that is a feature that
we want. How's that help? Thatt? If that? Why not? Um? Still,
the the I guess the video of the sky attack
(31:00):
the mannequ and I shouldn't say attacking, but just vigorous hugging.
Vigorous hugging going on seemed a little bit menacing, at
least for the for the mannequin that I'm bestowing all
these human qualities on. And of course, the other hug
machine that comes to mind would be a Temple grand
And hug machine. Um. I know. And if you're not
familiar with with Temple Grandon, um, then a she has
(31:21):
an excellent tied talk. Uh and then be they made
the movie Temple Grand And where Clare Daan's plays. There
was an HBO TV movie and it's it's really quite
good and she's and she's excellent in it as Temple Grand,
she's brilliant, she's autistic. She revolutionized animal science. Um, and
she was thinking like all right, she like she was
totally like, yeah, slaughtering animals, that's you know, she had
(31:43):
no problem with that. She you know, she was very
much a cowgirl herself. But she was like, there's no
need for it to be cruel, like, there's no need
for these animals to be stressed out. And you don't
want to stressed out animal in there from just a
just a purely utilitarian frame of mind, like even if
you don't care about what how the animal actually feels,
you want that you don't want the meat to be
all drawn up and uh and tight. Right, that's true.
(32:06):
If if the muscles contract, then you're gonna get a
tough kind of meat there. Um. But yeah, she used
her own anxiety in her own empathy toward animals actually,
which is interesting because she is autistic um to to
uh sort of imagine what that experience would be and
help revolutionize that so that animals when when they were
actually going to be slaughtered, were a lot calmer. Um.
(32:28):
But she also, again dealing with her own anxieties, created
the squeeze machine. She actually wrote about her experiences in
the journal Child and Adolescents psycho Pharmacology, and she says,
as a child, I crave to feel the comfort of
being held, but I would pull away when people hugged me.
When hugged, an overwhelming tidal wave of sensation flowed through me.
(32:49):
At times, I preferred such intense stimulation to the point
of pain rather than accept ordinary hugs. At puberty, anxiety
and nervousness. Nervousness made me feel as though I was
calm sently in a state of stage fright. While the
nature of this anxiety was not diagnosed at the time,
they have been retrospectively diagnosed as panic attacks. So at
the age of eighteen, she constructed this squeeze machine to
(33:12):
help calm herself down. And um, if you haven't seen it,
it's it's kind of easy to imagine her crawling into
like an iron maiden, but it's it's not. It's more
like panels that that press in when she pulls on
levers or strings. Right, Yeah, she's got a lever that
that can control the pressure um per square inch, and
she said that using the machine for fifteen minutes would
(33:33):
reduce her anxiety for up to forty five to sixty
minutes UH and then the relaxing effect was maximized if
the machine was used twice a day. And gradually her
tolerance of being held by the squeeze machine grew, and
also eventually her tolerance of being hugged and touched by
other people grew through this machine. And she did really
(33:55):
interesting studies with this machine on herself, on other college
students and also animals and across the boards. You found
that this machine, because of this um there's deep touch pressure,
it actually did the same sort of thing that a
hug would do, which is to release that oxytocin and
to reduce cortisol. Well, I've I've never used a hug
(34:18):
machine per se that I wish we had. When it works,
we should. We should talk to Tony. I'm pucking one in.
It's like the office needs a hug machine. It does
remind me though, some things in yoga that are like like,
for instance, when you roll into a ball, you know
and sort of on your child's what child's boat is
what pos as well, when you're you're facing down and
then also to to some extent eagle pose where you're
(34:39):
wrapping your limbs up like I always find the lower
portion of the eagle where you you intertwine your legs
and sort of bring her in the front of your
foot around behind your ankle like that. To me, that
feels really comforting. And I'm not I'm not really sure why.
I don't know. You just kind of feel like you're
hugging yourself. It's kind of like you're hugging yourself. Yeah,
it's like you're you're you're kind of like tight and compact,
and you're there's a a sense of comfort in itself well,
(35:01):
and it's it's interesting because it is that deep pressure
that is really important because if you were just to
lightly stroke your skin or someone else's, then that would
excite your nervous system. But somehow that deep pressure is
what you need, in that constant deep pressure to really
tell your your nervous system to calm down. This also
reminds me time massage at times feels a little bit
like it's kind of like being hugged. It's like a
(35:24):
cross for anyone who's has never had time massage. It's
it's a rather different animal than um sort of a
typical Western massage therapy where there's, you know, where they
generally have some like soft music playing. It's a lot
of more like a continued pressure kind of stuff. But um,
but with the time massage, it's like a lot of
like alternating pressure and to a certain extent, it feels
(35:46):
like someone is It's like a cross between somebody giving
you a massage, someone putting you in a wrestling hold,
and at times someone kind of hugging you right right,
So yeah, there you go. I mean, I love this
hugging thing because you know, not only can you just
use it on a day to day basis, you're you're
hugging your significant other, family members, you get a big
high off of it, but you can also manipulate others
(36:07):
with your hugs. Right. You can get them in a
bear hug, in a wrestling hold, and if they're inconsolable,
you know, twenty seconds later they're just going to be
like a babe in your arms. Yeah. I should mention
another disaster hug that I encountered, and that was one
where I was like talking about hug awkwardness with some
people at a at a party and uh, and so
I was kind of like the challenge. The gaantlet was
laid down, so I needed to actually hug this guy.
(36:30):
So my friend Matt. So so i go in for
a hug on Matt and I'm like, all right, let's
do it. Let's just do a big manly hug right here.
And right at that moment, somebody tried to cut between
us and that with like a beverage in their hand,
and so they were smashed between us as we attempted
to hug, and their drink fell to the to the
floor and shattered and it was very traumatic. Dude, that's
some bad hug karma. Yeah, that way it was exactly.
(36:51):
It was bad hug karma. I should point out that
I do not have a hug awkwardness with my wife.
I do really enjoy hugging my wife. Well, no, because
you're doing I'm doing twenty seconds or more. I'm yeah.
And I should also mention, just to call back, we
did a mystery Box episode and in that I made
a I talked about having been given a virginity box
(37:12):
when I was in the junior high and I was
supposed to you're supposed to hold on that for long,
and and I mentioned the people. It's like, hey, if
you're out there and you are a virgin, you know,
and no matter what your age is, uh like, don't
freak out about it, like it's no big deal. Like
sex is no big deal. I of course m was
referring to just the social pressure that is often put
on people to have sex, and was in no way
(37:33):
implying that that sex itself is no big deal, especially
as far as my my significant others concerned. Oh no,
I mean, yeah, we all know. Sex it's a big deal, right, yeah,
driving force behind pretty much everything we do every day. Yeah,
like that after my wife, I listen to this, like
it's not a little weird when you said, hey, don't
worry about sex, is no big deal. So just wanted
to me, I go, what you're saying. You were just
(37:55):
telling the kids out there, if it hasn't happened yet,
no big deal. Yeah, don't stress out about it. That's
my point. So hey, speaking of the kids out there,
I wonder if any of them have sent us some mail.
Let's call the robot for that's coming in for a hug,
all right, here's a little email from our listener Allison
out of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and right and says,
(38:18):
I run a computer lab and while tiding up the
lab during December exam period, I came across some interesting
graffiti on one of the desks. All week, we've been
hosting exams for the lab sections of e d D
one oh one, a class aimed at first year students
who want to learn how to study effectively for test,
how to improve their learning, etcetera. Which is why I
couldn't help but laugh when I came across very faintly
(38:40):
written crib notes on the desktop underneath a keyboard. Someone
took the time to cheat on a test about how
to take tests effectively. My coworker and I joked about
putting up signs in the lab, and today I made
it a reality. You see, this afternoon was the first
lab section of this semester's e d D one oh
one intake. I made sure to print extras in full
color and post them all around both computer lads, just
(39:03):
in case the new students needed an extra reminder. The
photo was difficult to take due to the lighting in
the room and because it was written so faintly, but
I'm sure the point is fairly clear. The text is
a tweet I made after finding the Scripples in December,
and she sent us an amusing photo of it. I
love the podcast. I always eagerly await new ones to
add to my queue alongside other wonderful Agent of You podcasts.
(39:27):
I love that. And we talked about that in the
cheating episode, about how when you put a mirror up
to someone um to their behavior, that's usually going to
stem that sort of transgression that they're about to make right,
so that hopefully that will be effective. We do know, though,
if you have someone sign a contract or some sort
of ethics code of ethics, that that's even more effective,
(39:49):
which was really interesting to learn about cheating. Yeah, I've
definitely been in some classes where they did that, where
they're like, here's the here's the code of honor, sign
it and then participate in my class and then you
didn't cheat. I don't think so. I don't remember what
clapp it was, but probably not. Um, you're not a cheater,
your lover, all right, I guess. Um. Well, anyway, if
(40:10):
if anything went out there has something they want to
share with us. You can find us on Facebook and
you can find us on Twitter. Imagine that on Twitter,
we are blow the Minded. On Facebook, you know, you
can just look for stuff to blow the mind and
we are there. And you can also send us an
email at blow the Mind at how stuff work dot com.
(40:38):
Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
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