The Power of Touch: 8 Tips to Embrace the Healing Benefits of Touch

Touch…it’s the first sense we experience at birth when we are placed in our mother’s arms and, if we are fortunate, the last we experience from loved ones at the end of our lives. Positive touch enriches our lives and is a powerful (and potentially healing) tool that evokes many emotions. The power of touch can heal the world, perhaps not always on a physical level, but most certainly on an emotional one.

At Kohler Waters Spa, and most spas throughout the world, we know firsthand the therapeutic and healing benefits of touch – it can help bring balance into someone’s life, it can create a sanctuary of peace and relaxation in your mind and your body, and it sure helps in getting back to a centered place so we can face the world again tomorrow. Bottom line: Don’t take touch for granted.

Here are a few tips to help you embrace the power of touch:

1)       Your touch is as unique as your fingerprints. No one has the same gifts and healing ability in their hands as you do in yours, and that’s because it is woven with your heart. Use this very special gift to express your love to others.

2)      When greeting someone that you want to make a connection with, not only should you extend your hand, but also your heart through a light touch on the shoulder, back, or arm. It’s easy and makes for a great connection.

3)     Soft is sweet. When rubbing a loved one’s back, sometimes we want to get the knots out, however, soft touches can raise the hair on the back of their necks, while also getting them to relax, and thus, breathe easier and relieve stress. It also says a lot without saying a word.

4)      Pin-point and go deep. When a body is experiencing undue pain, usually due to stress, go to the source and then using one finger or thumb, pin-point the area and apply pressure while the person breathes deeply.

5)      When being touched—whether by a loved one or through a professional spa treatment—it is a time where you can give up control and let the other person give their positive energy to you.  Let them be the conductor in the symphony of touch and beautiful music will happen as a result.

6)      Contrary to the saying, it is just as good to give as it is to receive! Reciprocity when someone touches you makes for a deeper connection.

7)      Touch can be very spiritual, from folding our hands to pray to using our hands to bless someone and everything in between. Through touch, find ways to connect with your higher power.

8)      Touch is not just for humans. Animals respond instinctively to positive touch; do you know of any pooch that can resist rolling over to have you scratch his/her belly the minute you touch him/her? They give in and let go, and as a result, experience sheer pleasure. We can learn a lot from them.

Above all, embrace it. Touch has intangible benefits to all those who use it positively and wisely.

Images courtesy of Kohler Co.