More than a year old Covid and on the eve of the second Easter to be spent away from friends and relatives, it is “hunger for skin”: the fasting of physical contact and affectionate gestures imposed by social distancing due to the need to reduce infections is now rampant, and it is a physical distance that it leaves its increasingly evident signs on mental well-being, especially of the most fragile, such as the elderly. In fact, the affective exchanges of friends and relatives not living together, of grandchildren and children are lost; kisses, caresses, hugs, aspects of everyday life that simply cannot be done without. And, like fasting for food, if prolonged, fasting from affectionate contact is not without consequences.
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It is the alarm launched on the eve of Easter by the experts of the Italian Society of Psychiatry (SIP): physical contact has real calming effects, because it is the most archaic way we have developed to feel safe, they explain. Massimo di Giannatonio and Enrico Zanalda, co-chairs of the SIP. “Furthermore, the sense of security and fulfillment induced by physical contact triggers positive neurochemical changes such as the increase in the production of oxytocin, the hormone of attachment and affection, which has a ‘soothing’ effect. Furthermore, affectionate gestures have also shown analgesic effects.
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It is no coincidence that several studies are already documenting the effects of “skin hunger” in the era Covid: it emerged, for example, that the impossibility of shaking hands or giving hugs creates, already in a few weeks, a state of anxiety and promotes sleep and mood disorders. A study conducted by Tiffany Field of the University of Miami in Florida during the first pandemic wave on 260 adults found that 60% of people accuse the lack of affectionate physical contact. Another work just published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology and coordinated by Debby Herbenick of the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington, shows that during the first wave of COVID-19 levels of depression and loneliness have significantly increased.
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Only those who maintained the possibility of not virtual but physical contact and opportunities for social connection maintained a good state of mental health. Skin hunger is a tangible disturbance, in fact, to make up for the lack of physical contact many individuals have resorted to adopting dogs and cats, as suggested by the fact that in the last year the waiting lists of the kennels have clearly lengthened. Graziano Pinna, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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For a year now, many people have not exchanged physical contacts for months, the expert reiterates; relapses can be important, in fact loneliness and lack of physical contact cause various alterations of body and psyche: they are associated with premature mortality and the development of diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disorders, but also with alterations of the immune system and dangerous chronic inflammatory processes. This picture is particularly alarming in the context of a pandemic. Mentally, lack of physical contact has negative effects on sleep duration and quality, he points out Pinna. This can favor the development of more serious symptoms and psychopathologies such as anxiety, depression, obsessions and even suicide.
“In experiments conducted in our laboratory in animals deprived of physical contact for several weeks and months we have observed dramatic neurochemical changes in the brain that interfere with the regulation of mood – he says. Pinna. In addition, alterations in neurotransmitters such as serotonin and substances that modulate psychological well-being develop in their brains ”.
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“Social restrictions remain necessary – they point out By Giannantonio and Zanalda: at this stage it is still impossible to ensure the usual gestures of affection to our non-cohabiting loved ones, and neither video calls nor messages can replace the real encounter between two people. However, there are measures that we can adopt to make up for the lack of physical contact, stimulating touch (the sense that most of all mediates our demonstrations of affection) in another way. A warm bath, for example, has a calming and reassuring effect, but also touches soft fabrics such as silk or a foot massage. If through the contact of ‘skin’ with pleasant or warm materials we feel pleasure – the psychiatrists continue – we can at least partially mitigate the fasting of real contacts with other people, they conclude.
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