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A hug or a back rub, the ways we show affection can also keep us healthy.

Sure, a massage is relaxing and feels great - it's also good for health. Besides relieving pain, it has been shown to ease depression and anxiety and speed recovery from medical treatment.

"The benefits of touch show up at every age," says psychologist Tiffany Field, who directs the Touch Research Institutes at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Premature infants who are held and gently massaged, develop faster, cry less and sleep better than those left alone. Far from injuring the infant, 3 massages a day for 10 days may result in fewer episodes of apnea, a risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). He should also gain weight 47 percent faster than non-massaged infants.

Massage can even hasten healing. In a research at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, bone-marrow transplant patients given massages had better neurological function than those in a control group. Researchers in Sweden also reported that massage cut down the pain by 37% in patients with fibromyalgia, a rheumatic condition in which there is muscular or musculoskeletal pain with stiffness and tenderness at specific points on the body.

The specific way in which touching delivers these benefits is not clear, though with the skin being the human body's largest organ and containing millions of receptors that send messages through nerve fibers to the brain, it is no doubt touch is an essential part of our health. It has been linked to slowing down heart rate, improving blood circulation, lowering blood pressure and the stress hormone cortisol, as well as increasing levels of serotonin (a brain chemical linked to well-being), and endorphins (immunity boosters). Even people in deep comas may show changes in their heart rates when their hands are held

The effect of even the most casual touch can be astonishing. In one survey, waitresses who touched their customers on the hand or shoulder as they returned change received larger tips than those who didn't.

The idea that touch can heal is an old one. The first written records of massage - the word comes from an Arabic word meaning touch - date back 2500 years to China.
Hippocrates, the Greek physician known as the father of modern medicine, was a proselytizer for massage in the fourth century B.C.

Over the years, this healing power has gained recognizance and therapeutic massage is now highly popular over the world. From reducing post-surgical pain and use of pain medication to severe cases like sciatica, sinusitis, dermatitis or diabetes, it has emerged as a powerful means of treatment and is used along with exercises and breathing techniques in the more sophisticated treatment of Emotional Healing or Body Psychotherapy.

The best part is, giving may be as good as receiving. From mothers who had been suffering from post-partum depression, those who massaged their infants have been found to relate better to them. In another study, elderly volunteers who massaged infants reported feeling less anxious and depressed.

You could even try it on yourself. A study in 1990 found that smokers who were taught to massage themselves while quitting felt less anxiety and smoked less. Another study found almost half of the patients with tension headaches got relief by massaging their temples and necks. To try it, apply moderate pressure to your temples, hands, feet or the back of your neck.

Learn more about this author, Talha Ahmed.
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