FRISKY FRIDAY FACT: Women Actually Need Hugs More Than Men – Here’s Why

A hug between romantic partners may do more for a woman than it does for a man.

German and Dutch researchers looked at 76 heterosexual, romantic relationships.

They had all participants stick one hand into an ice bath for three minutes, before they had half the couples hug…  And they found that the women in those couples had significantly lower levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, in their systems, afterward, compared to those who did not hug.

The effect on men was not measurable.

Study author Julian Packheiser says, “Simple advice would be to hug your partner, relatives, or friends if you know that they are confronted with stress situations soon.”

It’s also not clear why the same effect doesn’t occur in men—it’s thought it could be cultural, physiological, or it could just be that this study missed the evidence of this.

Get your brain around more, here:  (Newser)

• A study finds that women show a drop in stress hormones after hugs from their male romantic partners—but the same effect wasn’t seen in men—and it’s not clear why