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Christiane: Well, hello there. Welcome back to the Happy Healthy Hustle podcast. My name is Christiane Schroeter and I'm going to be here today presenting about the power of the 8 second hug. I'm a business and wellness coach and I love to kind of bring in some of the little tips and tricks that helped me in my professional life.

And one of those is what I call petite practice. It's Small little habits that you can weave into your day without making it like super time consuming, easy. I can't emphasize that word enough. And at the same time, fun. Maybe adding a little bit of European flair. You hear my accent? I am from Europe myself.

And we like to kind of weave in some little moments of joy. So one of those petite practices or small habits is actually called Bistro Break. And if you think about the word bistro, it in itself means it's a small little thing and a break is also something that, it's a small break, [00:01:00] but you're doing it very intentional.

You're really maybe just for five minutes, going away from your electronics. It's moving away from your computer, closing your eyes, maybe lying on your back, putting your legs up, maybe looking at nature, maybe going for a quick walk around the block, and then you come back to your work. So it's not a dinner break where you're going to take an hour out of your day, you are prepping, you're not really coming back to work at all, it's just a bistro break, just something small and very intentional, because you don't want to take a break from your work.

Scroll through social media and see that time goes by and your eyes don't get that electronic device break. So let me walk a little bit through the bistro break of the eight second hug. I read this amazing study by Dr. Christy Kane that talks about the five benefits of weaving a little bistro break.

Or that eight second hug into your day. And I'm going to walk through [00:02:00] that with you right now. And you might wonder really, what are the benefits of hugging? And I don't know, they even like hugging. Well, maybe once you hear what the benefits are, you might just become one of those huggers and maybe even over time, hold on to those hugs a little bit more so that you're really getting all these fantastic benefits.

Let's get started in talking a little bit about what's the point of hugging, right? Well, if you think about it, You're hugging somebody and I actually today practiced that with a few of my students and I did this countdown eight, seven, six. I have to admit at first it was seeming like quite long. We are like getting so used to just doing these quick little hugs and we're moving on.

But if you compare eight seconds to other things when you do in your life, it's really not a long time. We look at social media, we watch TV, We spend a lot of time doing these mindless tasks, where 8 [00:03:00] seconds is just going by like nothing. So a hug really should not be that much of a chore, where you really feel like, Oh my gosh, this is awfully long now.

Of course, if you're not a hugger, you have to work your way up there. But I have to actually really like count down to make sure I'm holding my hug long enough to get all the benefits, as I said, that point out during this study. So the eight second hug, it gives you this physical touch, maybe even the little squeeze at the end.

And what happens during the hug is actually that the feel good hormone is released. Oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone that makes you feel safe, it makes you feel happy, but at the same time it also reduces your stress. So that is that hormone that we really need, especially if we're maybe having a rough work day, to make us a little bit more comfortable with our life.

And if you think about that, especially during a stressful work day, you could [00:04:00] pair your little bistro break, your intentional break, with an eight second hug. and then maybe even step outside for five minutes and you will come back feeling refreshed and that you actually reset and get ready for another power work.

So the benefits of that oxytocin, that hormone that is released during your hug, are immense. So let me walk through some of your studies and what they found. So first of all, you could just say, you know what, I'm not into hugging, I'm just going to drink coffee. So coffee, of course, makes you really jittery and kind of like, you know, maybe hypes up your energy.

Oxytocin and hugs have the exact opposite effect. When you hug another person, your brain releases that oxytocin, that bonding chemical. And what's amazing is it makes us feel safe. It makes us feel stable. And so when the stress comes up, you kind of have like [00:05:00] a little bit of an armor and getting rid of that stress because you're like, no, I'm already feeling stable and safe.

I can deal with those situations right there. So your body is already in that set position to where any stress that might arise, you are basically just going to shake that off and you're like, don't sweat the small stuff. I can handle this, right? At the same time, think a little bit about how you feel during the week versus on weekends.

So during the week, we tend to not maybe hug that much, right? On weekends, maybe you see friends, you have a much more relaxed day compared to under the week. But now think about it, because we hug more on the weekends, We have the more relaxed days and at the same time on weekends, we do release more oxytocin, that chemical that does make you feel more safe and stable.

So why don't we add more hugs during the [00:06:00] weekday when we are actually feeling stressed to help us overcome that moment of anxiety, fear, and stress. Just to kind of combat that feeling a little bit with that little bistro break and your hugs in between. So why don't we get started? At the same time, hugs actually help and boost immunity?

Well, how come? Right? Well, the chemical oxytocin has actually been shown that it combats feeling of fatigue, of feeling that you are depleted in your energy, because it gives you that warm, cozy feeling. And that warm, cozy feeling is maybe also what will help you overcome any signs of even feeling depleted.

So the amazing thing about hugging is that releasing oxytocin, feeling that you get, and the feeling then with your mind body connection is also helping you boosting your immune system. Or why don't we [00:07:00] say optimizing your immune system right there. 

Another study has actually shown that hugs can also lower your heart rate. and your blood pressure. So this study by University of North Carolina has shown that if we do a 20 second hug and they answered a series of questions afterwards, the women that received the hug from their partners had actually lower blood pressure and heart rates. And that oxytocin again, the chemical that I talked about, was responsible for the majority of the lowering of heart rate and blood pressure.

So to just briefly review, because we have five of these amazing benefits. We are lowering our stress. We are boosting or optimizing our immunity. And thirdly, we are lowering our blood pressure. So the last two benefits of those eight second hugs are lowering depression and anxiety.

A lot of studies did this [00:08:00] comparison. How many times did people hug during the pandemic versus how many times did people maybe hug before the pandemic? So before the pandemic, on average, people hugged about 6. 29 times per day.During the pandemic, this number really went down. So it decreased drastically to 2. 64 times. So about half of the amount of hugs per day. If you think I hug six times, now I only hug three times. All of a sudden you're realizing that all these benefits with the release of the oxytocin just weren't there.

So aside from everything else that the pandemic brought upon us, now you're not getting the hugs, the physical touch, the contact, and of course that feel good, feeling safe. and stable hormone. So we need to pick this back up, right? we kind of like need to think that especially the people that have low self esteem, and I look at my teenagers when [00:09:00] they come home, those are the ones that really need the hug.

Because the touch makes you feel you're not isolated. You are part of a community of a group and you can get through whatever challenging situation you're struggling with together. So it's sometimes my teenagers when I come home or when they are at home and I'm feeling like they need a little hug, I just go over and I squeeze them a little bit and I say hug time and they are like maybe like, uh, like pulling away at first.

At the same time, if I keep doing this, they actually get used to it and they know that mom, she's not going to let me get away from this.And my older daughter has even said, Mom, do you need a hug right now?

So they understand there is a feel good moment that happens after the hug. And they also understand that that's something personally really important to me, that we can reach out to others without maybe even using words. [00:10:00] We can use our gestures, we can use our touch, and we can use an 8 second hug to make somebody feel better really quickly.

It's a little bistro break again. So, keeping maybe a mood boost in, you know, the back of your mind as you can cheer somebody up in person, of course, is something super important in this, you know, fast paced society. Lastly, there are studies that have shown that hugs can actually mitigate pain, and this is really an interesting study that has shown that patients that got hugs during the day, actually really, this was just a light touching, felt they had an increase in the quality of their life and that they had reduced pain with regard to their fibromyalgia.

And I think that HUDs also help in release endorphins and those endorphins help reduce pain. These [00:11:00] particular patients there didn't only get the oxytocin boost, they also got another endorphin boost and that really helped them overcome any pain symptoms they were struggling with. 

Now with that, just to briefly review why hugs are so amazing.

Release of oxytocin, which is the safe and stable hormone. Lowering your stress during the day. Optimizing our immunity. Maybe lowering blood pressure or high heart rate. Luring depression and mitigating pain. 

I would love to hear from you if you have any questions about this and I hope that you combine your little break in the day, your bistro break, maybe with giving somebody that eight second hug, maybe even adding that little squeeze at the end.

because it's such a simple, inexpensive, and easy little thing to cheer somebody up. And of course, it's also something that we can do just to let others know I'm here for you, reach out, and you [00:12:00] might just need that hug yourself sometime. With that, I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day. I hope you enjoyed this little bistro break.

Stay tuned for the next episode because I'm going to show you some fantastic tips that are absolute time savers. And let me know in the comments, which one of these five different facts 

was the most surprising and which fact resonated the most with you. I would love to hear from you. Send me a message if you have any questions and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Happy Healthy Hustle.