A Touch of Relief

Lovers' heartbeats and respiration patterns tend to get in sync when the partners are merely in each other's company. Now the interesting question that arises is what role will touch play during this synchronization and what happens when one of the partners is experiencing pain?
It can be noticed that when one is walking beside his or her partner, their steps tend to synchronize, or that while speaking to a close friend, one tends to adopt a similar posture as them.

The scientific name for this is "behavioural synchrony," and it refers to the human ability to synch up with other people for the sake of living in a society.

Some studies have pointed out that not only are some people able to synchronize their behaviour sometimes their physiology also tends to be in Sync.

                                                                                                  
"Interpersonal synchronization" will manifest in varied ways like while watching the same movie, people’s brain activity was found to be in sync on a number of occasions. Similarly, when lovers stare into each other's eyes, their hearts quite literally beat at the same rhythm.

New studies by the researchers at University of Colorado (CU) Boulder explore the role of touch in inducing interpersonal synchronization in the context of pain.

Dr Goldstein and colleagues conducted the study among a group of 22 heterosexual couples for their study, who were all aged between 23 and 32.

They recorded the participants' respiration rates and heartbeats using an electrocardiogram under both pain and no pain conditions, as well as in both touch and no touch conditions.

It was observed that when the woman was subjected to induced pain and was not in contact with her partner, the physiological coupling was considerably less. However, when the male partner held her hand, the observed heart rates and respiration rates synched up, and the woman was in considerably lesser pain.

Overall, it was deduced that touch plays an important role in interpersonal synchronization and it increased physiological coupling effect.

For more such interesting insights join us at the International Conference on Community Nursing and Public Health, November 19-21 2018, Cape Town, South Africa.

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John Hunt

Program Manager

Community Nursing 2018

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