Touching Reduces Pain and Stress: A Narrative Review

Abstract

This narrative review involved entering the terms touching, massage, pain and stress on PubMed and PsycINFO literature search engines. The search yielded 47 studies that are summarized here. The prevalence of touching has varied widely across cultures from a low of 57% in China to a high of 100% in Austria. Touching has been more prevalent in relationships with partners and children and was more diverse in warmer, less conservative and religious countries and among younger, female and liberal people. The three predominant forms of touching that appear in this literature include handholding primarily for painful conditions, hugging (embracing) for stressful conditions and massaging for both painful and stressful conditions. Other less prevalent literature addresses the effects of COVID-19 on touching, touching by robots, and negative reactions to touching. Unlike earlier literature, most of the researchers have either measured or theorized underlying brain pathways for touching reducing pain and stress. Most of this research has been conducted in the laboratory as opposed to being naturalistic, so it is not clear how generalizable the data are to lifelike situations.