The Embrace

Scientifically proven

When people embrace each other, the level of oxytocin, one of «pleasure hormones», in their cerebrospinal fluid and blood increases. This hormone regulates sexual behavior of animals. For females, it affects birth, lactation, attachment to children and sexual partner. For males, it decreases anxiety and fear — this is why after mating males become quieter and braver.

Experimentally observed

Embracing makes people more trustful and decreases anxiety and tension. It reduces depression and feeling of loneliness (in women more than in men). During embrace, systems responsible for informing the brain about pain or stress work less intensively. One calms down faster, pain spasms weaken. This is why trying to console a crying or distressed person, we usually hug and squeeze this person. The ability to enjoy communications with a close one is formed during the first months of human life. People who have not been hugged by their parents as infants have low levels of oxytocin. This is why they may become emotionally deprived for the rest of their lives.

Noted by me

Embrace is mirror-like. Looking at it, we always see the face of one embracer and back of the head of the other. What is that other thinking? Embrace is double-edged. While one embracer presses the other against his or her heart, the other can barely stand somebody’s touch. But the two can swap their roles. Embrace is deceptive. We may recall Judas’s embrace which led to a chain of betrayals. Why was it necessary? Christ could be identified by a simple hand movement. Embrace is the best way not only to express attachment but also to conceal betrayal. Everything has two sides. We get betrayed, we betray. Embrace, which always signifies openness, friendliness, joy of encounter, in Judas’s case became its own antipode — and a symbol of betrayal. Embrace is given to us not only to ease our pain, to express compassion and joy, but also as an ordeal.