What is Skin Hunger, aka Touch Hunger?

Have you ever missed holding someone’s hand, a hug, or other human contact? This is skin hunger. Also called touch hunger, touch deprivation, or touch starvation, we crave touch. Our skin is our largest organ and touch is the first language we learn. Touch is so important to our attachment and development.

Even before we can speak or identify the emotions we feel, touch and emotions are intertwined.

And arguably, touch is both expressed as and experienced as emotion. Think about a time someone touched you in a comforting way, how did that make you feel? Perhaps happy, loved, valued, or respected. Now, think about a time someone touched you in a creepy, forward, inappropriate, or unwelcome way. How did that make you feel? Perhaps fearful, threatened, disgusted, or angry. Touch can’t really exist without emotion. It is on this same emotional continuum that touch can lift our mood, reduce our stress levels, and improve our sleep. 

According to Healthline when we’re stressed, our bodies release the stress hormone, cortisol. On the flip side, touch can relieve that stress, and can also calm our heart rate and blood pressure. In our early years (really throughout our lives), touch plays a crucial role in building healthy relationships by stimulating pathways for oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine, the neurotransmitters that make us feel good. You know what else increases levels of oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine? Practicing gratitude.

What causes Skin Hunger?

While there’s no one cause of skin hunger, we can experience it after the ending of an intimate relationship through death, divorce, or difficult break-up. We can also experience skin hunger when isolated from friends or family. Residents in nursing homes who don’t have frequent visitors are also at risk of experiencing skin hunger. 

How to Cope with Being Touch Starved

What about when the touch of another is not available to us or causes us too much fear and anxiety? What are the ways you’ve learned to touch yourself to self-soothe? It could be twirling your hair to relieve anxiety, rubbing your face to relieve tension, massaging a tight neck or shoulder, rubbing your hand up and down your thigh when your hands or thighs are cold, or wrapping your arms around yourself to give yourself a comforting hug.

What are other Skin Hunger Solutions?

• Take a long, hot shower. Enjoy the water as it runs over your body. Lather up a loofah and gently skim all over your body. Pay attention to the sensation of touch on different parts of your body. 

• Soak in the tub, focus on the warm water on your skin. 

• Exfoliate your body with this easy DIY sugar scrub.

• Apply lotion on your body, especially after exfoliation. But don’t rush. Pay attention to the sensation of lotion on your skin.

• Give yourself a foot, hand, leg, or neck massage.

• If you feel comfortable, book yourself a massage. 

• Brush your hair or brush your body, what? Take a long-handled, soft-bristle brush and run it back and forth across your arms, legs, torso, back, sides and chest.

• Cuddle with your pets (if you have them), consider adopting a pet, or look for volunteer opportunities at a local animal shelter. 

• Even on a cold day, sit out in the sun and feel the warm rays on your skin. Wear a coat or wrap yourself in a blanket if needed. 

• Surround yourself with comforting textures (like silk, fleece, velvet, or flannel).   

• Pleasure yourself paying less attention to the destination and more to the journey. 

• Sleep with a body pillow.

• Use a weighted blanket. Mimicking the feeling of gentle squeezing, hugs, or holding that relaxes the nervous system, a weighted blanket can induce a sense of calm and peace.

• Start a daily gratitude practice, Like touch, practicing gratitude stimulates production of oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine, the neurotransmitters that make us feel good.

Hi, I’m Nikki. A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Social Work and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 17+ years of experience. In my online therapy practice, I support women and widows through life’s tough transitions. Contact me here for your FREE 15-minute consultation!