Study Uncovers Importance Of Touch For Wellness

Are you finding more clients are booking in for a massage? This might be why.

There are plenty of things we took for granted pre-COVID. The obvious; maybe watching live music in a crowded audience or the hours spent mooching around an airport terminal before boarding a flight. However, studies are showing that it’s the loss of the simplest things that can have the most impact.

Goldsmith University London and the BBC surveyed attitudes towards interpersonal touch and recently released its findings. The Touch Test examined 40,000 people across 112 countries between January and March 2020.

It found that 54 per cent of respondents reported getting too little touch in their daily lives, and 50 per cent felt that today’s society did not provide enough opportunities for interpersonal touch.

This paints a picture of how we navigated touch in a pre-COVID society, and given the on-going social distancing measures, we can only hypothesise the need for touch will increase. Professor Michael Banissy from Goldsmith University of London says this was the largest study of its kind and provides valuable insight into contemporary attitudes and experiences of touch.

“It indicates the importance of touch in our lives, and shows the crucial role that individual differences play in this,” Professor Banissy said.

With most avenues for interpersonal touch put on hold for the time-being, does this mean the wellness industry will fill a gap in the touch ‘market’? As research mounts on its importance, it might be the catalyst that transforms the spa massage from a ‘treat’ to a therapeutic tool for selfcare.

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