Hugs for Health and Happiness

I think it’s fantastic that Love gives us such simple, easy-to-use tools.

Smiles, laughter, skipping and dancing...

All ways to bring Love to life!

The focus of today’s Post is another biggie in Love’s toolkit: The hug.

What a beautiful way to create a more Loving world!

What’s a bit amazing is how easy it is to forget about the importance and effectiveness of this one small act!

I just heard the brilliant Dr. Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief, say a very powerful thing:
“The lack of knowledge is a lack of power.”

This is as true of Love as it is of any subject. That’s why I think Love education is so vital to our success!

I truly believe that it’s worth looking at how Love can concretely improve the quality of our lives...

So let’s shine the spotlight on the Almighty Hug for a minute, shall we?

Hugs for Health & Happiness

In 10 Reasons Why We Need at Least 8 Hugs a Day, Marcus Julian Felicetti opens with this:
“Hugging therapy is definitely a powerful way of healing. Research shows that hugging (and also laughter) is extremely effective at healing sickness, disease, loneliness, depression, anxiety and stress.”

He also quotes Virginia Satir, a respected family therapist as saying,
“We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need twelve hugs a day for growth.”

Wow! That’s a lot of hugs!

And I can tell you from personal experience that, especially for children, it really is important.

Here’s what happened recently.

My oldest daughter got out of bed quite soon after bedtime and said that she wanted a hug.

Now, I think I’m a pretty “huggy” person. And I bet anyone that knows me would agree.

I certainly thought I was giving my children plenty of hugs.

Still, this was enough for me to say to my Little One, “Now is not the time. Tomorrow we’ll start a hug chart.”

And so we did! We made it our goal to get at least 12 hugs in during the day.

For a few days we did it and it felt great. We colored in our 12 hearts on the chart and enjoyed every hug!

Then, as is so easy to do, we let it slide...

And proceeded to have a few really rough days in terms of listening and cooperating.

And now I think I know for sure just how amazingly powerful hugs really are.

Even if we aren’t coloring in our hug chart, I’m definitely going to make a conscious effort to give a whole lot of hugs throughout the day!

Give a Hug, Get a Hug

One of the many useful benefits of a hug? You can’t give one without getting one for yourself!

So, go ahead. Make a point of it. Say you read the Love Post and it told you to give more hugs.

Give someone a gift: Hug them!

In the process, you’ll get the nice side effects too!

The Power of Hugs – The More The Merrierrn⥠Strengthens the immune systemrn⥠Makes us more patientrn⥠Perfect treatment for stress and anxietyrn⥠Builds self-esteem, especially in childrenrn⥠Releases Dopamine: Source of good feelings and motivationrn⥠Helps us get through painful or stressful situationsrn⥠Releases oxytocin which fills us with happinessrn⥠Conveys many emotions without saying a wordrn⥠Balances the nervous systemrn⥠Is a strong display of love and support