Never before has
the World Day of Hugs
been an anniversary to celebrate as a good omen.
In
lockdown
, but especially in hospitals and
RSAs
, the
Covid-19 virus
has denied the possibility of giving and receiving comfort.
The strength and warmth of the hugs was lacking especially for those who lost their lives in solitude.
Today more than ever we have all understood how much physical contact and affection can be good for morale and for our physical and mental health.
It is from this reflection that, albeit belatedly compared to the first wave of deaths carried away by the pandemic, in some residences for the elderly and in some hospitals, real
embrace rooms
have been set up
in which they can wrap, both through an anti -contagion, one's own affections.
After
Blue Monday
, the saddest Monday of the year,
World Hug Day
is celebrated
on
21 January
.
According to researchers at the University of Amsterdam, Hug Therapy or hug therapy helps to overcome anxiety, depression and stress, while also helping to make us mentally stronger and happier.
Established in 1986 in the United States, the Day is an opportunity to rediscover the emotional contact and the pleasure of a hug, a gesture that is increasingly becoming unusual, even before the Covid era, due to the frenzy and rhythms that mark life in the Western world.
The hug is a reassurance, a consolation.
The living being is spontaneously led to seek contact with the other: the images of Australian koalas embraced to face a moment of great fear and difficulty are well impressed in everyone's eyes.
You can hug animals, as the success of pet therapy teaches us, but also, as happens in Milan at Biancolatte Hugs, soft stuffed animals, including the great White Rabbit "Free Hugs".
"The soft toy represents - explains Dr. Marta Di Meo, psychologist and psychotherapist expert in Hug Therapy - the object that brings us back to childhood, when we had no thoughts or worries. The hug with the soft toy acts to hormone level by lowering cortisol, which is the stress hormone, and allowing our body to release beneficial substances that facilitate muscle relaxation and the lowering of the heart rate; the body therefore relaxes and the mind is calmer ".
While waiting to be able to embrace distant relatives and friends
, it is also possible to console oneself in this way.