Our year strokes hair when he is tired, turning his curls between his fingers. This is how to sleep: the eyelids fall, fall, go down.
Neuroscientifics call this, “Carudo and rhythmic carudo” slow touch “or”Affective touch. “It moves through the skin to 10 centimeters per second, faster than a snail, slower than handwriting, and works better when it is hot and focuses on hairy skin, such as the scalp or forearm, we and other mammals have the highest density of f fibers C: specialized nerves specialized to respond to soft contact.
What fascinates me with f fibers is its double nature. In addition to a soft caress, these evolutionarily and slow nerves are also responsible for carrying the sensation of a hot chili, the itching of an eruption of poisonous oak, the infernal fire of the tiles.
The f fibers do not have myelin, the fatty coating that helps other nerves to send signals quickly. While faster myelinized nerves offer acute and immediate pain, the guy you feel when you get a finger of the foot, the C fibers handle the slowest and most diffuse pain that persists later. When they are damaged or too sensitive, the f fibers can trigger lasting and difficult pain conditions to treat such as allodynia, where even a hug or a pat in the back hurts, and clothes irritate the skin. But the opposite sensations that carry the f fibers can also Cancel each other To some extent, that is why some researchers are exploring the slow touch as a treatment for pain and itching.
At the right time, and the right person, Slow Touch feels incredible. It helps newborns to regulate their temperature and heart rhythms, and helps older children to develop a feeling of “me”, where their own body ends and that of another person begins. It is not surprising that the first slow -touch experiences can launch a long shadowThe investigation suggests: people who were careless or mistreated, since children often find a slow less pleasant touch than those who did not.
What privilege, and responsibility, to help shape the sense of the touch of another person, as a father. When Will breaks his lip or hits a finger into a drawer, he instinctively picks him up and stroked his hair and arms, trying to comfort him the best he can. I can’t help falling (or even go up to the kitchen table, apparently). But the time we hurry helps us both to recover when it happens.
Meanwhile, Will is also learning how to use touch to show affection, although he is often still painful on my part. (Did you know that hair provocation is obtained? One of the fastest known pain signs?) Although it is not yet speaking clearly, you are learning to communicate in an integrated language in our own nerves and universal among the species. Its fundamental principle is simple but surprisingly difficult to dominate: you must caress, not grab! – The cat.
#Slow #touch
