Science has long known that support from loved ones –in the form of touch, tenderness or kind words – really can make people feel better.  As well as reducing a patient’s immediate discomfort and stress, the benefits can continue in the form of reduced blood pressure and improved immune function.  Now some fascinating research shows that giving the support can be as beneficial as receiving it.

A study  in the January 2012 edition of Psychosomatic Medicine, a peer-reviewed health psychology journal, reported on what happens to the brain activity of women who provide support to their partners.  In the study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to scan the brains of 20 young women whose boyfriends were standing just outside the scanner.  As the women’s brains were being scanned, the poor fellas were subjected to painful electric shocks – something they willingly signed up for in the name of science.  At various times, the women were able to hold their boyfriends’ arm.  At other times, the women had to watch their boyfriends endure the shocks without being able to do anything.  To provide a ‘control condition’, there were times when the boyfriends did not receive any shock at all and the women could either touch or not touch their arm.

The researchers found that simply touching their boyfriends’ arm as they experienced pain activated the ‘reward’ regions of the women’s brains, the same areas that are active in response to chocolate, sex and winning money.  In other words, giving support was processed as a very basic type of rewarding experience.  There was another interesting finding:  the brains of the women who were able to touch their boyfriends during the shocks showed decreased activity in the region of the brain known to be involved in stress and fear.

What does all this mean?  Naomi Eisenberger, the senior author of the study, speculated that humans are wired to give support to those close to us.  This increases the chances of the support giver surviving and in evolutionary terms, making it more likely that healthy genes will be passed on.  By making it psychologically rewarding to give support, nature is sneakily encouraging us to do it more often.

What I would love to know – and no doubt the researchers are on to it – is whether the results would be the same if it were women receiving the electric shocks while their boyfriends provided the soothing touch!

I recently returned from a week-long trip to the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.  Its fresh mountain air, stunning landscape and proximity to hiking trails attracts visitors year-round.  Part of the reason for my visit was to do exactly what other people go there for – take some long walks, be soothed by nature, and have a break from Michigan‘s winter.  But it occurred to me as I was driving there how absurd it was to spend10 hours in a car so that I could go for a walk.  

When did walking become an ‘activity’, something we go out of our way to do?  Sometimes we get in a car, drive to a carpark, walk for an hour or two, return to the car and then call it – depending on your country of origin – ‘hiking’ (US), ‘bushwalking’ (Australia), ‘rambling (UK) or ‘tramping’ (New Zealand).  It’s something so unlike the activity we do every day that we give it a special name.  Writer Bill Bryson, in his entertaining volume about his adventures on the Appalachian Trail, A Walk in the Woods, observes how Americans have come to view the great outdoors.  Nature, he writes, is either ruthlessly conquered and destroyed, or treated as something “holy and remote.”

I can personally vouch for this. When I arrived at the ticket counter at the grandly beautiful Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, I asked whether I could walk from the carpark to the estate so that I could enjoy the grounds.  The receptionist, sensing that I had just landed from another planet, said, “Oh it’s too far to walk.”  When I inquired how far, she said, “At least two miles.”  When I told her I was happy to cover this distance on foot and in fact preferred to do so, she huffed, “We don’t allow anyone to walk.”

With attitudes like this, it’s hardly surprising that people are getting less exercise than they need.  The Center for Disease Control‘s recent physical activity statistics showed that fully one-quarter of the American population engages in absolutely no leisure time activity whatsoever.  And by this, the CDC means not even a single walk around the block once a week.  No wonder the Appalachian Trail is held in such high esteem.