The Importance of Giving and Getting Hugs | Jack Canfield

Hi, I'm Jack Canfield, and today I'd like to talk to you about the importance of giving and getting hugs in your life. You know, back in the days when I was in the Graduate school of Education at the University of Massachusetts, I had a professor by the name of Dr. Sydney Simon who wrote a book about what he called skin hunger. He documented the fact that being touched is a deep human need. We all need to experience the nurturing and healing effects of hugging and touching. And he reported on a study in a European orphanage in which many of the babies were failing to thrive. They were sickly and not growing. Now, they brought in a doctor who was an epidemiologist to see what was causing the problem. Was there some kind of bacterial infection? They took swabs and analyzed them, looking for what could be the cause. But they couldn't discover the cause. On one of the visits, the doctor noticed that when it was feeding time, the nurses would simply place the bottles of formula or milk into the baby's mouth. And as soon as the baby grabbed the bottle with their hands, the nurse would move to the n baby. Now, being a parent who had watched his wife always hold their babies when they were being nursed or fed from a bottle, he asked the nurses to experiment with picking the babies up and holding them for a few minutes when they were feeding them. Now, as soon as this practice was implemented, the baby stopped getting sick. Now, the Average person has 2 square meters or 22 square feet, or 3,168 square inches of skin, and it thrives on being touched. Now, world renowned family therapist Virginia Satir asserted that there are four human needs for high self esteem. The first is that you need to be attended to. The second is you need to be listened to. The third is you need to be treated with mutual respect. And the fourth is you need to be touched regularly. She quoted from the research from the Family Research Institute that we all need four hugs a day just for survival, eight hugs for normal maintenance and 12 hugs for growth. So ask yourself, are you getting 12 hugs a day? And if not, where and from whom can you get them? Now, in all of my longer seminars like our five day breakthrough to success training or our two week Train the trainer program, I start each day with a meditation followed by something I call the hug process. Now, first I demonstrate a few kind of hugs that really don't work very well. And then the kind of hug that is most nurturing. And then I simply ask people to stand up, mill around the room and get some hugs. So I'm going to demonstrate some of the hugs that don't work in terms of being fully nurturing hugs. And I've asked the CEO of my company, Russ Kamalski, to step in and help me. Thank you, Russ. Sure thing. So the first kind of hug that doesn't work is called an A frame hug. Now, this is an a frame hug looks like this. And the only thing that gets hugged is kind of your shoulders and a little bit of your neck, so it's not very useful. Now, there's one called half a chest is better than none looks like this. A lot of people do this when they hug, and also that's not very nurturing. And then there's what I call the me and you against the world hug, where you're hugging sideways like this. We do that a lot, but it doesn't really nurture you as well. And then there's something called the hit and run hug. A lot of people do this. That's not going to work either. And then there's a bear hug where you're hugging so tight, it's like a free chiropractic treatment. You know, you hear things popping in your back. That's not nurturing either. And then there's something called birth. The baby looks like this. And I used to actually be someone who did that way back when. And I was cured by a person in a workshop up in Seattle. I was doing that, and she started patting me on the head like this. I said, well, what it does is it's kind of like infantilizing the other person, kind of turning them into a. Which I say harmless infant, if you will. Now, there's another thing where you'll see people picking people up which disempowers them, and you don't want to be doing that as either, even if they're small. Now, you can do that with your children, obviously with your wife. When you see these movies where they run and jump into each other's arms, believe it or not, I'm going to admit that I was watching an episode of the Bachelorette, I think it was the other night with my wife, and she came running up to the guys and jumped up in his arms. That's all fine. When you're in that kind of romantic relationship, that is another thing that we see a lot. People do what I call it the bump and grind hug. I won't demonstrate that with Russ Eater, but it's where people are touching parts of the body and become sexual. You don't want to be doing that, but let Me demonstrate what a good nurturing hug is. Now, up until now, we've been hugging the way most people in America hug, which is right ear to right ear, which looks like this. And what we're finding out now is the most nurturing hug is actually left ear to left ear. And then what happens when you do that? It becomes a heart to heart hug. Your two hearts are right over each other. So we'll demonstrate that. And you want to just hug for as long as it feels comfortable. You're touching all the from your chest down to your stomach usually. And that's really very good. I want to show you why that's so important. I'm going to hug the first. Let's muscle test you see how strong you are under normal conditions. Really strong. Now I'm going to hug you the old fashioned way right here to right here. And then we're going to test your arm again. Notice what happens? It goes down. Now we'll hug the new way, heart to heart. And let's look at what happens. Good and strong again. Now, one last thing I want to demonstrate with us. Here is what you do when you hug short people. If someone's this tall, they're hugging you and probably they're getting a nice armpit smell, which is not what you want to have happen. So when someone's smaller, if you'll dip down a little bit smaller, you want to dip down to the same level. Just bend your knees so you're hugging shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, like we just demonstrated now. Thank you, Russ. Sure appreciate that. Very good. Now, you might be wondering, how long should a good hug last? That's a good question. It turns out to get the full benefits of a hug, a hug should last 20 seconds. That's the research. Now that may not always be appropriate for hugging a colleague or a fellow team member, someone at work or on a team, but with your family and closest friends. Go for 20 seconds. I'll tell you about some of the benefits of hugging in a few minutes, but first I want to tell you two stories. Now, we were doing one of our executive mastermind retreats in Maui, and one of the participants was a former member of the sas, which is the United Kingdom Special Forces like their green berets, Navy SEALs. And he was initially very reluctant to participate in the hugs. He was very uncomfortable hugging people. Now, a year later, he came back to participate a second time in the training. And when I asked him why, he said, I wanted to get some more hugs. So after the second time back, he now gives and gets hugs from lots of different people, hugs his family members more, and hugging colleagues. Now, many years ago, I was asked to come into a middle school for a week and teach the kids in the bottom fourth of the sixth grade kids that were like academically and behaviorally not doing so well. They wanted me to teach them some techniques and to build their self esteem and improve their academic performance. So I was there every day, literally, you know, like from 8 till 3 o' clock for a whole week. And on the first day, I had all the kids stand up, get into several lines and turn to the right and give the kid in front of them a shoulder massage. Now there was this one big kid who looked like the quintessential bully who placed a Vulcan death grip on the kid in front of him. And I had to go over and teach him how to gently but firmly give a shoulder massage. And so he didn't do that to me because I was a teacher. And we practiced until we got the right pressure. Now from then on, he was actually great at it. I think it was Thursday or Friday, I forgot to start the class with a shoulder massage and he raised his hand. I called him and he said in a loud voice, hey, Mr. Canfield, are we going to do that shoulder thing or what? Now it turns out this was the only nurturing touch he was getting anywhere in his life. So touching is really important. Make sure you're hugging your family, hugging your friends, and making sure everyone's getting those 12 hugs we talked about. Now, before I list some of the positive benefits of hugging, let me remind you that it's always important to first ask for permission before you hug or touch somebody, especially in this day and age of the MeToo movement. Now, the easiest way to do that is simply say, can I give you a hug? And if you feel nervous about asking for hugs, start by asking for them from your friends and family members closest to you first. Get used to it. So let me end this video by sharing with you some of the most positive benefits of hugging. And and this is all based on solid scientific research. Hugs help protect you from stress related illnesses. There was a study published by Carnegie Mellon that found that there's a relationship between receiving hugs and your immune system. And the researchers found that people who experienced hugs more frequently were less likely to get sick and that even if they did get sick, their symptoms were less intense. Hugging improves your physical performance. The New York Times reported on a study that found that athletes perform better when when they showed physical camaraderie, such as hugging, high fiving, et cetera. The study found that teams, including in the NBA that showed the most touch bonding like high fives and hugs were among the highest ranking and best performing. Hugs can make you less nervous speaking in public. A study found that people performing the typically stressful activity of public speaking had lower heart rates when they had a 20 second hug from their partners compared to those who did not have any physical contact. Hugging can lower the stress hormone cortisol levels in your body. Hugging is one of the activities that releases oxytocin in your brain naturally and that helps you bond and strengthen interpersonal relationships. An increased amount of oxytocin is also associated with better heart health. Hugging can be a form of pain release by releasing endorphins which block pain pathways and by improving circulation which improves pain peptides. Hugging can help you feel less alone. It's totally possible in today's world to spend large periods of time without interacting with another human being. We're in our computers, we're in carols at work, etc. And this type of isolation isn't healthy as it can trigger or deepen feelings of depression. So as you can see, there are a lot of psychological and physical benefits of giving and getting hugs. Well, thanks for watching and if you found this video helpful, please make sure you like it, share it with a friend who may also need some hugs, and subscribe to my channel for more videos like this one. And for some additional resources on creating more happiness and joy in your life, be sure to visit my website@jackcampfield.com.