A new study says that patients who are touched by sympathetic doctors during their visits feel as if the visit was twice as long.

Patients who were massaged by a loved one reported less pain, less depression and have stronger relationships.

Benedict Carey writes the Mind column for The New York Times. This week’s is about touch as a new area of study for researchers interested in non-verbal communication. It is riveting reading.

Non-verbal communication has been an area of study for some time because it has proved to be a universal one. A hostile stare is a hostile stare, no matter what town or country you are in.

The latest form of non-verbal communication to seize the attention of researchers are the small touches between humans. Basketball players during the game, doing high fives, for example, are communicating more than it appears.

Touch is the first language we learn, says one of the researchers, whereas before, the focus was on facial expressions as, perhaps, our first language.

Carey’s topic in this week’s column is important reading  for anyone who could be in need of encouragement and support(read: everyone)—and patients or their family members are high up on that list.

I have long wondered why hand-holding is so important at times of serious illness, dying and death—much like a fast-acting, anti-anxiety agent, which has no side effects. Watch. Hand-holding is that powerful.

Anyone who has walked through a lot of hospital halls has seen a lot of world-class hand-holding. Group hand-holding. Nurses who take the hands of patients or family members know exactly what care they are delivering. It does not matter if the nurse just met the patient. It works. You can see it on the patient’s face, a quick look of relief.

Hand-holding clearly is one of the fastest and most powerful ways to comfort anyone in distress. In fact, hand-holding is accepted by stoics who don’t want to “make a fuss” or who need to seem in command of the situation, however dire. Now, that’s an independent measure of the usefulness of hand-holding.

Please follow the link and read the full column.

The New York Times

…”A warm tone of voice, a hostile stare — both have the same meaning in Terre Haute or Timbuktu, and are among dozens of signals that form a universal human vocabulary.

“But in recent years some researchers have begun to focus on a different, often more subtle kind of wordless communication: physical contact. Momentary touches, they say — whether an exuberant high five, a warm hand on the shoulder, or a creepy touch to the arm — can communicate an even wider range of emotion than gestures or expressions, and sometimes do so more quickly and accurately than words. (Emphasis added)

“It is the first language we learn,” said Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life” (Norton, 2009), and remains, he said, “our richest means of emotional expression” throughout life.

“The evidence that such messages can lead to clear, almost immediate changes in how people think and behave is accumulating fast. Students who received a supportive touch on the back or arm from a teacher were nearly twice as likely to volunteer in class as those who did not, studies have found. A sympathetic touch from a doctor leaves people with the impression that the visit lasted twice as long, compared with estimates from people who were untouched. Research by Tiffany Field of the Touch Research Institute in Miami has found that a massage from a loved one can not only ease pain but also soothe depression and strengthen a relationship.”

Source: New York Times, February 22, 2010