A HUG A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY
DO GET EMOTIONAL
Social support can broadly be defined as the perception of meaningful relationships that serve as a psychological resource during tough times, states scientificamerican.com. More specifically, this means emotional support, such as expressions of compassion, and may include access to information or other assistance.
The researchers measured social support by giving out a questionnaire in which participants rated different statements (eg “I feel that there is no one I can share my most private worries and fears with”). Then, they conducted interviews every night for two weeks to find out how often participants experienced conflict with others and how often they received hugs. Finally, the researchers infected participants with a common cold virus and observed what happened.
Several interesting results emerged. Encouragingly, people overall had a strong sense of social support, as shown by a high median score on the questionnaire.
Similarly, they were more likely to be hugged (which happened on an average of 68 per cent of days during the twoweek inter--
view period) than to experience conflict (7 per cent of days).
A STRESS BUFFERING EFFECT
The most important results, however, were what the researchers deemed a “stressbuffering effect”. Keep in mind that interpersonal conflict can cause people a lot of stress and thereby weaken their immune systems. Yet regardless of how much conflict they endured, participants with a strong sense of social support developed less severe cold symptoms than those who felt socially deprived. Likewise, the more often people hugged, the less likely they were to get sick, even among individuals who frequently had tense interactions.
SOCIAL TIES ARE THE KEY
The same lead researcher has previously shown that the more diverse types of social ties a person has, such as with friends, family, coworkers, and community, the less susceptible to colds they are. On the extreme end, social connectedness seems to play a role in preventing death. For instance, researchers in Sweden found that the otherwise robust association between job strain and mortality risk disappeared among men high in social support. In fact, low levels of social support can increase the risk for premature death more than commonly known factors like smoking or alcohol consumption, according to a review paper that examined data for over 300,000 people
around the world.