Background Being touched by others improves stress coping. However, when touch from
others is unavailable, feels uncomfortable, or is not considered to be safe (as in the COVID …

Background: Affectionate touch, which is vital for mental and physical health, was restricted
during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study investigated the association between momentary …

Stress is omnipresent in our everyday lives. It is therefore critical to identify potential stress-
buffering behaviors that can help to prevent the negative effects of acute stress in daily life …

Research demonstrates that highly self-critical individuals can respond negatively to the
initial introduction of a range of therapeutic interventions. Yet touch as a form of therapeutic …

Social touch—the affiliative skin-to-skin contact between individuals—can rapidly evoke
emotions of comfort, pleasure, or calm, and is essential for mental and physical well-being …

During the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing guidelines were implemented to
reduce viral spread, altering typical social interactions and reducing the amount of physical …

Social touch has positive effects on social affiliation and stress alleviation. However, its
ubiquitous presence in human life does not allow the study of social touch deprivation 'in the …

Touch is an important form of social interaction, and one that can have powerful emotional
consequences. Appropriate touch can be calming, while inappropriate touch can be anxiety …

Recent evidence from neurophysiology and human functional neuroimaging has given rise
to the hypothesis that social, affective touch belongs to a distinct category of tactile …

Interpersonal touch is a fundamental component of social interactions because it can
mitigate physical and psychological distress. To reproduce the psychological and …