Do We Need Hugs to Be Happy? I Don’t.

Recently published reports in Discover and Psychology Today assert that hugs are essential for human happiness. According to Suzanne Deggs-White, a professor at Northern Illinois University who studies social relationships, our need to be hugged goes back to our earliest days in the primeval morass, and a nice warm hug releases bonding hormones that not only make us happy but help make us successful human beings.

“When we can’t hug, we don’t get that jolt of good hormones,” the professor says. To further buttress this argument, research published a few months earlier in the journal Psychological Science asserted that hugs have a “stress-buffering” power that may conceivably ward off infections and chronic illness.

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Read the whole story (subscription may be required): The Wall Street Journal