Mind-Sharpening Benefits of Moderate Stress

"It's possible that experiencing stressors creates opportunities for you to solve a problem; for example, maybe fixing your computer that has suddenly broken down before an important Zoom meeting."

"So experiencing these stressors may not be pleasant but they may force you to solve a problem, and this might actually be good for cognitive functioning, especially as we grow older."

"The assumption has always been that stress is bad. I took a step back and thought, what about the people who report never having stress?" 

"My previous work has focused on people who have higher versus lower levels of stress, but I'd never questioned what it looks like if people experience no stress. Are they the healthiest of all?"

"I think there's an assumption that negative events and positive events are these polar opposites, but in reality, they're correlated."

"But really, I think experiencing small daily stressors like having an argument with somebody or having your computer break down or maybe being stuck in traffic, I think they might be a marker for someone who has a busy and maybe full life."

"Having some stress is just an indicator that you are engaged in life."

David M. Almeida, professor of human development and family studies, Penn State

"... what really surprised us is that people at mid-life reported a lot more stressors, about 19% more stress in 2010 than in 1990. And that translates to 64 more days of stress a year,” said David M. Almeida, professor of human development and family studies at Penn State. Image: © Getty Images / laflor

Stress, when we speak the word we think of tension, of being upset, of being forced to tolerate something unpleasant in our lives -- or conversely reject the unpleasantness by dealing with it and in so doing causing other levels of stress. There is, in fact, stress inherent in living, and we feel stressors -- minor for the most part, major on occasion -- throughout our lives. And for most people the acknowledgment that feeling stress comes with the territory of being human and alive, allows us to learn to deal with the symptoms for the most part. It does take its physical and mental toll, however.

A new study from Penn State University reveals that there are some people among us who not only feel no stress whatever, but unlike our imagination that to never feel stress is to feel good about everything, the research pinpointed downsides to a stress-free life. There were just short of three thousand participants in the study who were requested to fill out a cognitive test before they were interviewed nightly for eight consecutive nights. The study subjects were asked to respond to questions about their mood, their physical symptoms, any chronic conditions, and what occupied them throughout the course of a day.

The study revealed that while people who reported experiencing no stressors to be less likely to have chronic health conditions, they were also more likely to exhibit lower cognitive function. All those small stressors of life may, after all, benefit the brain, aside from being irritatingly annoying. Many previous studies, the researchers noted, linked stress with a higher risk of poor emotional well-being and chronic illness, among other distinctions.

 Getty Images BrianAJackson

According to study results, there did appear to be some benefits for people who reported no stressors -- representing about ten percent of the participants -- since they were privileged with better moods throughout the day. Dr.Almeida pointed out that it may be logical to believe that someone who is stress-free may be healthier generally, but not much research has been done on that assumption. Those people who reported no stressors performed lower on the cognition test and were less likely to report giving or receiving emotional support; as a result were less likely to experience positive things occurring throughout the course of a day.

For many, if not most people, experiencing stress of one kind or another is merely considered to be a normal part of life; 50 percent of Canadians claim that stress has a negative impact on their sleep and 63 percent state that they feel the same (22 percent) or more (45 percent) amount of stress as they experienced five years previously, according to an Ipsos poll. No one would question the negative impact some stress has on many people's lives; however, this study suggests that it is likely fine to sweat the small stuff, after all. How we respond to the stressors we feel may be more important, than struggling to avoid stress altogether.

"Stressors are events that create challenges in our lives. And I think experiencing stressors is part of life. There could be potential benefits to that. I think what's important is how people respond to stressors. Responding to a stressor by being upset and worried is more unhealthy than the number of stressors you encounter", emphasized Dr.Almeida.

People who reported experiencing no stressors were more likely to experience better daily well-being and fewer chronic health conditions. However, they were also more likely to have lower cognitive function, as well. Image is in the public domain

That Other Eternal Search

"There’s currently a renaissance going on in psychedelic research with pilot trials and promising studies of full-dose MDMA (ecstasy) use for post-traumatic stress disorder and of psilocybin use within healthy populations or to treat depression and end-of-life anxiety. There hasn’t been the same research focus on microdosing. We didn’t have answers to the most basic epidemiological questions – who is doing this and what are they doing?"
"We wanted to ensure the results produced a good basis for future psychedelic science.Typical doses aren’t well established. We think it’s about 10 mcg or one-tenth of an LSD tab, or 0.2 grams of dried mushrooms. Those amounts are close to what participants reported in our data."
"Users engage in black market criminalized activities to obtain psychedelics. If you’re buying what your dealer says is LSD, it could very well be something else. We wouldn’t suggest that people microdose, but if they are going to, they should use Erlich reagent [a drug testing solution] to ensure they are not getting something other than LSD."
"With microdoses, there should be no ‘trip’ and no hallucinations. The idea is to enhance something about one’s daily activities, but it can be very difficult to divide a ½-cm square of LSD blotting paper into 10 equal doses. The LSD might not be evenly distributed on the square and a microdoser could accidentally ‘trip’ by taking too much or not taking enough."
"The goal of the study was to create a foundation that could support future work in this area, so I’m really excited about what these results can offer future research. The benefits and drawbacks data will help ensure we can ask meaningful questions about what participants are reporting. Our future research will involve running lab-based, randomized-control trials where psychedelics are administered in controlled environments. This will help us to better characterize the therapeutic and cognitive-enhancing effects of psychedelics in very small doses."
Thomas Anderson, PhD candidate, cognitive neuroscientist, Regulatory and Affective Dynamics (RAD) Lab, U of T Mississauga

Microdosers experiment with sub-hallucinogenic hits of acid and mushrooms in the hope of gaining some reprieve from depression, anxiety and other distractions. Brent Lewin/Getty Images

"What we found with microdosing is that people's negative feelings again were less. But they also had more positive feelings, which has never appeared on anti-depressant studies. People felt less bad, and more good."
"People indicate they have incredibly improved focus and attention. I remember one young man who said, 'I only use it [LSD] when I have a coding problem'."
James Fadiman, psychedelic researcher and psychologist, author The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide

LSD blotter tabs on top of a US quarter coin. Microdosers say they typically take about one- or two-tenths of a tab every three days or once per week. (Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)

"[Microdosing can induce a kind of] cognitive flexibility [one] that helps you reframe how you are seeing the world, what's salient to you, the kinds of connections you're able to make, the kinds of insights into problematic situations that you're capable of having." 
"[Psychedelics are about therapeutic or existential improvement], how to make sense of your environment and realize what's relevant to you."
"It's more about people trying to respond to the meaning crisis in culture [not the] tune in, drop [counterculture of the 1960s]."
John Vervaeka, assistant professor, cognitive psychology and cognitive science, University of Toronto

A new Canadian study digs into the little-researched subject of how and why people microdose psychedelic drugs, including so-called magic mushrooms, pictured above. (Evert-Jan Daniels/AFP/Getty Images)

There were 909 participants in one of the largest formal studies recruited online from 29 countries to focus on microdosing with psychedelics to assess the effects on mental health. Responses to the online questionnaire and having participants measure creativity allowed two University of Toronto PhD candidates to complete one of the first psychological profiles of a community that is growing, and identified by their commitment to microdosing; consumption of small amounts of LSD or "magic mushrooms".

Microdosers scored lower overall on neuroticism and "dysfunctional attitudes" than their non-microdosing counterparts. They also had higher scores on a "wisdom" scale measuring certain perceptions such as "I am in touch with my feelings", or "I have a good sense of humour about myself". The microdosers appeared to be more open-minded, curious and creative, able to think of more unique and unusual uses for example, that a brick or a knife could be put to. They appeared to the researchers to be prime examples of outstanding mental health.

The two researchers, Thomas Anderson and Rotem Petranker, compared current and former microdosers against controls with no microdosing experience in their backgrounds. University of Toronto Centre for Psychedelic Studies, newly launched, and the two researchers are now preparing for a first Canadian study of a new randomized trial to compare placebos to measured psilocybin -- the principal psychoactive compound in certain types of fresh and dried mushrooms. According to Mr. Petranker, the associate director of the new centre, microdosing has assumed the proportions of a new religion.

Several trials have been conducted on the affects of taking LSD, but none on microdosing it. Photograph: PR

Microdosing subreddit alone has close to 40,000 using subscribers making it abundantly clear that tens of thousands of people have launched their personal experiments with sub-hallucinogenic hits of acid and mushrooms hoping to feel less depressed, to assuage anxiety, to become more focused; a practise likened to an "illicit, chemical form of yoga", according to The New York Times. It's a trend that saw its beginnings in Silicon Valley when biohackers in 2010 were looking for a competitive edge.

Psychedelic-guided therapy at the present is based primarily on a phenomenon known as "ego dissolution"; belief that a person's sense of self, distinct from the rest of the world, evaporates during a psychedelic experience, permitting a new sense of connections and "boundlessness" to be gained. Microdosing involves "sub-perceptual" hits, typically representing one-tenth of a recreational dose; ensuring that no altered states of consciousness ensue. There should be no visions, no wavering lights; less about feeling at one with everything, more about pulling through the day.

More than half of Canadians, according to a recent survey, believe depression and anxiety have reached "epidemic" proportions. "People are saying, at a grassroots level, what else can we possibly do?", said Petranker, given that antidepressants dispensed so commonly offer little help over placebo for mild depression, according to studies. Mr. Fadiman, of Sofia University in Palo Alto, California and Toronto clinical psychologist Sophia Korb report from their experience with microdosers, the end result is that there is less depression, better mood, less procrastination, more energy and more patience.

Researchers presented the findings at the Beyond Psychedelics conference in Prague in June. (Source: The Benefits and Drawbacks of Microdosing Psychedelics)

The Passing Years

"It showed [Getty Images search for online images of older people] that we are just not visualizing older people with the same richness and diversity that we use to visualize younger people."
"Instead of representing aging in a genuine way we are reinforcing stereotypes."
Rebecca Swift, director of creative insight, Getty

"If we can get people to think about aging in a much more positive way and not as this inevitable cascade of decline then we could start to see really impressive feats of function in older people that wouldn't be just exceptions to the rule but would just be, 'Well, that's what older people do now'."
Joe Baker, kinesiologist, York University, Toronto

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau star in Grumpy Old Men    Credit: Rex

In bygone societies the elderly were celebrated for assumed and legendary levels of wisdom, related to their years of life giving them opportunities for experiences, each of which is considered a learning opportunity to accumulate knowledge and confidence about the world around them. Placing them in a trusted position to teach the younger generation through capitalizing on the knowledge they acquired through living and exposure to life's vicissitudes.

The elderly were respected and honoured, as long as they weren't living in subsistence societies where resources to sustain life were limited and everyone in society was expected to expend time and energy to be productive. In some such societies, once the elderly became infirm and could no longer contribute to the general weal while remaining respected, they acceded to a custom of removing themselves, recognizing they had become a burden.

In today's societies of relative plenty while the elderly have equal status in importance to all others their status as elders is accepted as a natural order of life progressing from infancy to adulthood to the senior years and death. An aura of expendability has arisen in a culture that celebrates youth, freshness, action, beauty and good health. Everyone wants to be included in the category of 'young', including the elderly, attempting to fashion themselves as pre-elderly.

And those whose health is impaired by age to the point where such a pretense is no longer viable, regard themselves gloomily as old, decrepit, awaiting the inevitable. That frame of mind can wreak deadly damage on a psyche fixated on the benefits of youth they feel they never fully sufficiently appreciated when they were young and yearn to recapture now that they are not, but with ill health dominating their lives they surrender to mere existence with scant pleasure in life.

Rebecca Swift was alluding to a 2016 search by Getty Images relating to their stock photo inventory and their web-crawling technology, discovering in their search for typical photographs of the elderly that what they found were pictures of unhappy, sedentary people, people shown in stereotypical activities; sitting around with grandchildren, having tea with other elderly; typical inaction associated with 'being old'.

Film and advertising, television shows and online images all portray the typical older person whom society generally glances past, ignores or views as caricatures, because of course aging is a natural phenomenon beloved of no one.   If, on the other hand, as a member of that demographic one is routinely exposed to these popular cultural tropes it has a depressing effect; a generation viewed in unappealing stereotypes, gearing the onlooker to anticipate their own impending fate.

It is well known that exposure to racist and sexist assumptions can cause minorities and women to test and think less positively about themselves. There are studies that demonstrate that older people will tend to walk, talk and think more tentatively if they have been exposed to ongoing, unflattering images of the elderly frail, incapable of adequately caring for themselves, withdrawing from general society.

Vivienne Flesher

At York University's School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, Rachael Stone, a researcher, had older test subjects climb a flight of stairs. She then had them repeat the exercise after giving them a false article to read on aging eroding stair climbing ability. From speed, to accuracy, to balance, their performance deteriorated.

Memory too is susceptible to a similar decline when doubts assail one's capacity because of exposure to stereotypical renditions of the elderly mind fraught with memory lapses. Those risible but telling "senior moments". Many elderly make the assumption that their memories are failing them and because they feel that way, they make no effort to use that function; to recall a long-familiar recipe, to rely on a GPS system driving a familiar route. Cognitive decline follows when the brain is underused.

There are ample studies that illustrate that people with a more positive view of growing older will be better at looking after themselves, performing better on memory and motor control tests where they are able to walk faster, standing a better chance of recovering from disability and living an average of seven and a half years longer than others of their age group who make no effort to use all their functions, physical and mental.

Researchers at Yale University studied people with a gene variant linked to dementia, finding that those with a favourable view of aging were fifty percent less likely to go on to develop the disease than those with a gloomy outlook. Professor of epidemiology and psychology Becca Levy, the lead author in the study regards the results as an action call: "This helps make the case of implementing a public health campaign against ageism".

Gratuities Or Not?

"Overall, the current findings suggest that, if any restaurants are going to lead the movement away from tipping, it should be upscale restaurants and those restaurants should replace tipping, not with service charges, but with service-inclusive pricing."
"Indeed, the data suggest that only upscale restaurants can abandon tipping without suffering a reduction in overall customer satisfaction and only if they replace it with service-inclusive-pricing."
"These findings indicate that restaurants at all price tiers should expect the elimination of tipping to reduce online customer ratings. The only exception is expensive restaurants replacing tipping with service-inclusive-menu-pricing; in that case only can tipping be eliminated without reducing online customer ratings."
"Many restaurateurs hope to offset such costs [increase in minimum wages] by replacing tipping, which generates revenue management cannot legally access, with service charges or higher menu prices, which generate revenue management can control and distribute more equitably between front- and back-of-house employees."
"[Research] adds to a limited body of evidence that tipping increases overall customer satisfaction relative to that under alternative compensation/pricing systems -- especially when compared to service charge systems at less expensive establishments."
Hospitality research team, lead: Michael Lynn, Cornell University

Tipping benefits customers, while its elimination can harm their sense of self esteem.

We like to feel good about ourselves, and being generous to others helps us feel we're doing the 'right thing', it would seem. And when you're taking a taxi, being served in a restaurant, or tipping a bell-hop for example, it seems the right thing to do in the knowledge that these are low-wage services leaving those being tipped dependent on the generosity of those whom they're serving to supplement their earnings. There is a standard for tipping in the West, and people generally adhere to it, viewing it as a small part of the generalized social contract.

A research paper published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management had those involved in this study convinced that tipping makes people feel they have done the right thing. And that to institute a no-tipping rule would have negative effects. If there is no method by which customers who have been well-served can indicate their appreciation beyond a simple 'thank you', by proffering a cash award to a server, the feeling would be that server would lack motivation to continue providing good service.

So the impulse to tip isn't entirely altruistic in nature, obviously. Customers become concerned that with no incentive to the server through a cash award to provide good service, the level of care in serving would deteriorate. The study authors carried out by researchers at Cornell University point to tipping as a form of "altruistic conspicuous consumption" whose result is that in having the tipper feel good is psychologically beneficial, leaving people with the impression they are generous to others less wealthy than themselves.

Their research also led them to the conclusion that customer satisfaction would be hugely reduced were tipping to be left out of the equation. Customers actually self-report on their eating-out experiences and are inclined to feel better served where tipping is customary, attested to by online ratings. Where restaurants have experimented with alternatives to tipping, the comments tend to be more critical in nature; something is missing, that feel-good attitude.

Implementing a no-tipping policy for a restaurant leads to a reduction in customer satisfaction, according to the research. Which concludes that should eating establishments want to entirely satisfy their clientele, allowing free and voluntary tipping is the key instead of building tips into the meal price or by addition to the bill. The issue is a live one at a time when minimum wages have escalated so that restaurant owners try to make up for added operating expense by absorbing tips into general revenue that otherwise are directed to wait staff.

Data used by the research team was provided by the website ReviewTrackers with about ten thousand ratings of 41 restaurants at all price levels in a two-year period. The ratings gathered there had been posted originally on websites more familiar to must users, such as Yelp, Google, Facebook, or TripAdviser. This, at a time when one in five restaurants had committed to no-tipping policies, and other restaurants are moving in the same direction.

Needless to say the issue of tipping is a cultural one. And not all cultures agree with tipping. In Japan, famously, it is considered insulting to tip anyone in the service industry. There is pride in providing outstanding service, and it is expected by society that service will be outstanding. To imply that someone in the service industry requires an impetus provided by an additional cash reward is not looked on kindly in that culture.

Sparing Piscine Pain

"God put these animals on the earth for us to survive on. Whoever's coming out with 'fish are tortured', or 'fish feel pain', they're not playing with a full deck."
"I don't want to be rude."
"[The tanks at Abrams Seafood, Panama City Florida, containing ice and water above freezing] kills them instantly. They're not moving around."
Greg Abrams, Florida commercial fisherman

"I have argued that there is as much evidence that fish feel pain and suffer as there is for birds and mammals - and more than there is for human neonates and preterm babies."
"Whatever that means for the fish. It's not that they experience the pain that we do, which is more sophisticated."
"It's not a swift death. It's not much fun watching a fish flopping around, not breathing normally."
"The brain is still alert [for fish in chill tanks] though the fish have stopped moving. It can take several minutes for fish to die in icy slush, with some fish still showing signs of gill cover movements five hours after entering the ice slurry."
Victoria Braithwaite, professor of fisheries and biology, Penn State University

"You have a catch come on board with two million creatures, and you're going to take each one of them and say, 'Let's change how you're dying'. It's impossible."
"You're not changing the way that the Russians are trawling or the way that the Japanese are trawling."
David Krebs, founder, Ariel Seafoods, Destin, Florida

The hook of a fishing lure is stuck in the upper jaw of this rainbow trout. Whether the animal feels pain is not verified beyond any doubt, according to a new study.  Credit: Alexander Schwab

If the public considers the possible effects on fish when they're caught and hauled out of their natural environment to asphyxiate on their way to dying, the negligible afterthought borne of social custom considering fish to be devoid of feeling or emotion is that it just happens; they die and become food. Not that they die in agony, or that they die desperately attempting to save themselves from death because they have been imprinted by nature to struggle to survive, as do all living organisms.

We argue to ourselves that their brains are too primitive, too underdeveloped and rudimentary to account for feelings such as pain, let alone a primal group memory of tactics to avoid death. We are sentient, they are not, therefore we feel the agony of pain and of impending death, and they cannot and do not. Scientists, biologists and researchers have been studying the issue and it's been years since they reached a conclusion that nothing could be further from the truth.

According to one academic, brains of certain ray-finned fish are "sufficiently complex to support sentience", while other academics have written that fish and other aquatic species "meet the criteria for sentience, including the ability to experience positive and negative emotions". In 2003, Professor Braithwaite co-authored a study suggesting fish anatomy is sufficiently complex to enable them to experience pain and discomfort. A later book, Do Fish Feel Pain? consolidated her conclusion.

In an article that ran in the storytelling studio Topic, writer Cat Ferguson posits that the Japanese fish-killing technique, named Ike Jime is not only more humane than other types of slaughter, but it also results in better-tasting fish products; stress and pain hormones will not have 'spoiled' the taste of the fish, as a result of an instant kill, bypassing prolonged death resulting in the agony of killing pain.

In acknowledging that fish feel pain, the question now is how would that knowledge impact the fishing industry, and presumably the demands made by a consuming public wanting to know that the fish products they consume are humanely killed before processing? To satisfy consumer demand governments would be pressed to respond with regulations around animal slaughter, much as is done with livestock. That would impact on trawlers and fish farms but commercial trawlers?

Over 80 percent of the seafood North Americans consume is imported and even though a large proportion of it is actually caught by local fishermen, it is often sent overseas to be processed, and then returned to North America, frozen and prepared. Commercial fishing boats are capable of netting a million or more fish at one swoop. Those large commercial trawlers kill their haul by allowing the fish to asphyxiate on deck, which takes several minutes before they die.

A World Bank report estimates that aquaculture will become the supplier of over 60 percent of fish for human consumption by 2030. That same aquaculture that is making an effort to reverse its reputation for polluting the environment and spreading (fish) disease. A senior research associate with Freshwater Institute, a West Virginia research facility, speaks of their mission to create recirculating aquaculture systems to alleviate fish stress through to the stage of slaughter.

There, at Freshwater, the group linked to the Conservation Fund, employs equipment that kills fish instantly with a pneumatic piston to the brain, where 15 seconds is all it takes from the salmon's tank removal to slaughter; a humane slaughter designed to comfort consumers as much as to regard the welfare of the fish itself. The process at Freshwater "actually leads to a high-quality product at the end", states senior research associate John Davidson.

Whether or not fish feel pain has been debated for years. But the balance of evidence says yes. Now the question is, what do we do about it? (redbrickstock.com / Alamy)

To Have and to Hold

"We so much embrace sexuality and we so much embrace sex in marriage and relationships with others that we lose that connection with just feeling safe in touching and holding."
"I think a lot of guys don't know how to do that very well with their partners. They don't know how to hold a physical non-sexual space with a partner."
Mark Stone, holistic kinesiologist, Chicago

"They can't touch men because that's gay. They can't touch women because that's creepy. They can't touch children because, well, everybody knows you'd be a pedophile if you touched a kid."
"So men can either touch a sexual partner or they can touch in violence."
Kassandra Brown, cuddlist.com provider, Boulder, Colorado

"Most clients are under some level of duress: anxiety, stress, loss or need."
"If there's sexual chemistry [arousal] does that mean you have to act on it? You notice it, you let it pass."
Adam Lippin, co-founder, cuddlist.com

Cuddler Madison Powell says people often think her occupation is weird, but she believes providing human touch is an essential service for people who lack it in their lives. (Madison Powell)

 

There's a market for everything. Build it and they will come. Sometimes the service being marketed deals with deep-seated emotional needs. A market deserving to be served, perhaps. Perhaps the need for such a market reflects the deep alienation pervasive in modern society. On the other hand, it's possible that remoteness from one to another always existed, anywhere, at any time. In the modern era, however, it is all too likely exacerbated by our ability to communicate anywhere, anytime. Which is to say, remotely.

Our need to physically confront another human being for any reason; to pass the time of day, to indulge in deep conversations, to share experiences, to express our desires, to explore the possibility of finding a life companion, is being circumvented to a certain degree by the distance we place between ourselves and those we communicate with online. There are all too many who have a presence online with a nefarious agenda; how to separate them from the genuinely concerned?

In an era when companionship seems more elusive than ever, when more people live single lives, when it seems difficult to meet potential friends and partners in life, and when emotional bonds that form all too frequently break down as people exert their individuality and forgo the simple expedient of compromising in the greater interests of living congenially with others in mutual respect and fondness, separations constantly occur, and people are left emotionally deprived, shiftless.

"I was kind of an empty shell of touch deprivation. I thought, 'Why isn't there a Starbucks for hugs, where do I go for that? So I realized that this is a thing that should exist", explained 20-something Portland, Oregon resident, Samantha Hess. On the dissolution of her marriage she thought long and deep and in 2014 opened a shop she named Cuddle Up to Me, and there trained cuddlers to hold, stroke and hug customers platonically, fulfilling a need for a physical touch of another human being.

How innovative.... Casual physical touch appears an anomaly in current social culture where onscreen interactions is where socializing largely takes place for far too many people, leaving them with an aching vacuum. The website cuddlist.com is now two years old. It has been responsible for training roughly 400 professional cuddlers and works to connect clients to providers across the United States. (The concept has now spread to Canada, an indication that physical-touch deprivation is universal.)

Some of those clients have a physical disability, suffer from post-traumatic stress, or have been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Increased attentiveness, decreased depression and immune-system boosts have been linked in studies with massage therapy. An hour session with a cuddlist.com provider comes in at $80 U.S, which the site has managed for over ten thousand requests for service. Although providers are both male and female, 91 percent of cuddlist.com clients are male, three-quarters of providers, female.

Marylen Reid, founder of The Cuddlery, said she dreamed of starting the business when she had trouble finding platonic 'cuddle buddies' online. (Marylen Reid)

 

There are strict rules imposed by cuddlist.com on how a session engages and performs. The initial contact between client and cuddler is by telephone after which a meeting takes place where both agree that there will be no sexual quotient involved and either provider or client may end a session at any point should either feel constrained to do so. Conversations usually run through a typical session, while clients and providers hold hands or hug.

"Massage therapy ethics are all about one-way touch. There was not a way for (clients) to be OK with saying, 'Could you hold me'?", explains Annie Hopson, a Cuddlist provider from Ellicott City, Maryland, who also works as a massage therapist. Steve Curry of Northampton, Massachusetts, who struggles with spina bifida, explains: "As far as being in a touch relationship, most touch centred around my medical-care needs, not emotional needs."

To fulfill those needs he books two-hour cuddle sessions twice monthly, and for him, "It's never enough". Once a pro cuddling session has concluded, some clients claim they feel more comfortable initiating touch casually among their friends, or they no longer, when someone happens to touch them casually, flinch.

Paid cuddling services have started up in several cities across Canada in the last year, charging between $60 and $100 for an hour of snuggling. (The Cuddlery)