Could a hug a day keep the doctor away? The answer may be a resounding “yes!” (1)_____ helping you feel close and (2)_____ to people you care about, it turns out that hugs can bring a (3)_____ of health benefits to your body and mind. Believe it or not, a warm embrace might even help you (4)_____ getting sick this winter.
In a recent study (5)_____ over 400 health adults, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania examined the effects of perceived social support and the receipt of hugs (6)_____ the participants’ susceptibility to developing the common cold after being (7)_____ to the virus. People who perceived greater social support were less likely to come (8)_____ with a cold, and the researchers (9)_____ that the stress-reducing effects of hugging (10)_____ about 32 percent of that beneficial effect. (11)_____ among those who got a cold, the ones who felt greater social support and received more frequent hugs had less severe (12)_____.
“Hugging protects people who are under stress from the (13)_____ risk for colds that’s usually (14)_____ with stress,” notes Sheldon Cohen, a professor of psychology at Carnegie. Hugging “is a marker of intimacy and helps (15)_____ the feeling that others are there to help (16)_____ difficulty.”
Some experts (17)_____ the stress-reducing, health-related benefits of hugging to the release of oxytocin, often called “the bonding hormone” (18)_____ it promotes attachment in relationships, including that between mothers and their newborn babies. Oxytocin is made primarily in the central lower part of the brain, and some of it is released into the bloodstream. But some of it (19)_____ in the brain, where it (20)_____ mood, behavior and physiology.
