Every Sunday I have a certain place to stand and a fairly large number of our church family comes by for a hug. I refer to it as the hugging line. Some will even look me up if for some reason we missed.

Hugging Can Improve Your Health

Hugging is a miracle medicine that can relieve many physical and emotional problems facing Americans, experts tell us.
The type of hugging recommended by Dr. David Bresler, Director of the Pain Control Unit at UCLA, is use both arms, face your partner and perform a full embrace.
"I often tell my patients to use hugging as a part of their treatment for pain. To be held is enormously therepeutic."
Researchers have also discovered that hugging can help you live longer, protect you against illness, cure depression and stress, strengthen family relationships and help ypu sleep without pills.
"Hugging is an excellent tonic," declared Dr Harold Voth, senior psychiatrist at the prestigious Menninger Foundation in Topeka Kansas. "It has been shown scientifically that people who are mentally run-down and depressed are far more prone to sickness than those who are not."
"Hugging can lift depression-- enabling the body's immune system to become tuned up. Hugging breathes fresh life into a tired body and makes you feel younger and more vibrant."
"In the home, daily hugging will strengthen relationships and significantly reduce friction."
"I'm convinced that the tender embrace can prevent or cure a host of different problems," said Dr. Robert Rynearson, who is chairman of the Psychiatry Department at Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas.
"A hug can have an astonishing therepeutic effect by providing a sense of companionship and happiness."
"Researchers discovered that when a person is touched the amount of hemoglobin in their blood increases significantly," said Helen Colton, author of "The Joy of Touching."


Coming next . Some hugs aren't hugs

The previous article and some others to come are selected from my files during the many years I spent in Management.