What to do when you need a hug

a little collection of ideas

A few months back, alone, ill and feeling unmoored, I found myself Googling ‘what to do when you need a hug’.

As I write tonight - equipped with knowledge from that time but also from teachers, therapists, friends and other guides - I am sat with my back against a wall, an electric blanket around me and a heavy bolster over my lap. Tonight, within a far shorter period of time than I would have experienced in previous times in my life, I have gone from feeling desperately panicky to okay enough to write, laugh and sing.

Is Googling that I wanted a hug embarrassing to admit? At first blush perhaps. Loneliness is taboo, and in talking about this need for a hug I’m opening up to all sorts of assumptions about my life. It’s also admitting to needing something. It’s also admitting to having a body with desires and emotions. Loneliness? Needs? A body? Emotions? God forbid! These are things shrouded with shame but incredibly humanly universal. Incredibly normal. As often shame is just that, our human messiness, hidden.

If you are reading this you probably don’t need me to tell you that for most people, touch, hugs and being held are fundamental.

I’ve also recently learnt that hugs have health benefits, they support immunity and reduce stress, fear and pain. Research shows that for those with chronic pain, regular touch can reduce the severity of the pain. It’s important to note too that for some people touch from others can be dysregulating and trigger meltdowns or pose a risk to their health, but even then self-touch or appropriate touch from trusted safe people can be important.

The most obvious thing when you need a hug may be to ask for one. But that isn’t always possible. Perhaps no one is around, perhaps the people around us aren’t safe, perhaps our needs contradict. One person may need space whilst the other needs attention. We may need more than those around us can give. We might be surrounded by people and none of them want to hug. We may be infectious or vulnerable to infection.

So what can you do to get the relief of a hug that you’re looking for?

These are some things I’ve tried and tested:

• hold something weighted - e.g. a heavy bolster or lots of pillows

• lay on your side with pillows tight on either side

• lay on your front all tucked in

• cover yourself in heavy blanket or pillow

• cuddle soft toys

• try vagus nerve exercises (this is one i’ve found helpful)

• hold something warm - a hot water bottle, or microwavable toy

• wrap up in a heated electric blanket

• wrap yourself up

• have a hot shower or bath

• sing (it can regulate your breathing)

• ying yoga or yoga nidra

• massage

• stories and storytelling

• sensory naming (like naming what you can see around a room)

  

  I painted these coloured paths on my walls during the lockdowns - they gave me something to follow when I felt unmoored at a time when we couldn’t hug each other much.

Maybe these seem obvious to you. Maybe not. There is no shame in still learning to self soothe. We were never meant to do this all alone, but sometimes we have to, and its okay if you’re having to learn from someone else how take care of yourself. We are hardwired for connection, for learning for one another and for coregulation. None of these are the same as being co-dependent.

Ironically self-care was can never be a solo pursuit (who picked the leaves in the tea you drink? who made the shows you watch? who made the pipes bringing the water to your bath? Speaking of roman plumbing, perhaps this topic of how you can never have pure self care is my ‘roman empire’)

Having said this when I googled what to do when you need a hug, I surrounded myself with pillows and blankets. It soon brought me into a calmer place. I was quite amazed by the difference I could make to how I felt.

I recorded a little Instagram story, just to my close friends, expressing what had helped me, and I got so many replies. So many people had had the same question. So many had developed ways to fulfil the need, so many people told me about their cuddly toys, their heated blankets, the exercises they did. This was a relief to know I wasn’t alone.

At the same time, it also broke my heart a little knowing we are all wanting a hug, but we were far apart. It’s sad that such a basic human need can feel so unreachable. It feels very symptomatic of our current ways of organising ourselves politically, socially and romantically/ in terms of relationship models where our lives are so separate and remote from one another.

All this noted, the hope is then, from a place of being relatively soothed, we then have more capacity to make plans to reconnect with other humans again, to plan radically loving social worlds. Or maybe to just feel a bit less shit.

Whatever reason you need a hug today, as you wait for things to shift (be that recovering from an illness, being around safe people again or feeling strong enough to ask for help) I hope you can give yourself some relief. Be gentle on yourself as you find the ways that work best for you. Know that on one day, you may be easily soothed, and on the next perhaps no amount of ‘self care’ will feel like enough.

And I hope you know that if you can’t bring relief to yourself, that is just as human, and you are not broken. We were never meant to do all of this alone. This is just one set of seeds that I offer in a whole array of gardening tools. Whilst it’s helpful to self soothe, it’s a part of something bigger. You do not have to live and grow alone.

With hugs,

Rachel x