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Studies have shown that loving touch alone--in whatever style--can improve health. A Philadelphia experiment studied the survival chances of patients that had had
heart attacks. Examining a wide spectrum of variables and their effects
on survival, the experiments discovered that the variable that produced the
strongest effect was pet ownership. It made no difference if the person
were married or single--pet owners still survived the longest.
The idle stroking
of our pets that is so calming and can be done almost subconsciously while we do
something else or talk to friends or work has a healing effect. As one of the
experimenters said: "We raise our children in a nontactile society and have to
compensate with nonhuman creatures. First with teddy bears and blankets, then
with pets. When touch isn't there, our true isolation comes through." Touching
is just as therapeutic as being touched; the healer, the giver of touch, is
simultaneously healed.
--from The Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman |
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