touch as food
Around the turn of the century, studies conducted investigating the infant mortality rate in U.S. orphanages found that between 90 and 99% of children died within their first year of life! This prompted subsequent studies into the causes of these extraordinary findings, which revealed that the primary cause of death was a lack of caring physical contact. Children were simply warehoused in over-crowdwed, under-staffed facilities, and while they were fed and cleaned, given medical attention and treatment, no one was picking them up, stroking, cuddling, or nurturing. Changes in procedures and an increase of staff throughout the early part of the century corresponded with dramatic decreases in these mortality rates.
Today it is understood through nearly a century of research that touch is food.
This following is an excerpt from a Deepak Chopra book. I can't remember exactly which one but the last word in the title is Healing. I also don't know where he got this fascinating information, but here it is:
An Ohio University study of heart disease in the 1970s was conducted by feeding quite toxic, high-cholesterol diets to rabbits in order to block their arteries, duplicating the effect that such a diet has on human arteries. Consistent results began to appear in all rabbit groups except for one, which strangely displayed 60 percent fewer symptoms. Nothing in the rabbits' physiology could account for their high tolerance to the diet, until it was discovered by accident that the student who was in charge of feeding these particular rabbits liked to fondle and pet them. He would hold each rabbit lovingly for a few minutes before feeding it; astonishingly, this alone seemed to enable the animals to overcome the toxic diet. Repeat experiments, in which one group of rabbits was treated neutrally while the others were loved, came up with the same results. Once again, the mechanism that causes such immunity is quite unknown. It is baffling to think that evolution has built into the rabbit mind an immune response that needs to be triggered by human [or rabbit?] cuddling.
Today it is understood through nearly a century of research that touch is food.
This following is an excerpt from a Deepak Chopra book. I can't remember exactly which one but the last word in the title is Healing. I also don't know where he got this fascinating information, but here it is:
An Ohio University study of heart disease in the 1970s was conducted by feeding quite toxic, high-cholesterol diets to rabbits in order to block their arteries, duplicating the effect that such a diet has on human arteries. Consistent results began to appear in all rabbit groups except for one, which strangely displayed 60 percent fewer symptoms. Nothing in the rabbits' physiology could account for their high tolerance to the diet, until it was discovered by accident that the student who was in charge of feeding these particular rabbits liked to fondle and pet them. He would hold each rabbit lovingly for a few minutes before feeding it; astonishingly, this alone seemed to enable the animals to overcome the toxic diet. Repeat experiments, in which one group of rabbits was treated neutrally while the others were loved, came up with the same results. Once again, the mechanism that causes such immunity is quite unknown. It is baffling to think that evolution has built into the rabbit mind an immune response that needs to be triggered by human [or rabbit?] cuddling.