Study Finds One Thing Women Can Do To Avoid A Cortisol Spike

We can't always tell when stress is going to strike, but when we're knowingly going into a tense situation, it can help us to be prepared. And according to a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE1, there is one thing women can do before a stressful event to help keep cortisol levels down—here's what they found.

But before that, half of the participants hugged their romantic partner, and the other half did not. The idea was to see whether hugging before the stressful event would influence the participants' stress response, which researchers assessed based on cortisol levels in their saliva, their blood pressure, and their emotional state.

Based on the findings, hugging may, indeed, be an effective way to mitigate cortisol spikes ahead of a stressful event. Namely, the women who hugged their partners showed a lower cortisol response to the experiment than the women who did not hug their partners. (Blood pressure and emotional state did not seem to change with hugging.)

Going forward, the researchers are interested to know if these results can be duplicated with platonic friends, as opposed to romantic partners. They also point out that it would be worthwhile to look into whether the pandemic's impact on socializing and social touch could be making us even more stressed out than we would be otherwise.

There are plenty of ways to mitigate stress, from getting enough sleep to taking a calming supplement to having a regular movement routine.* And according to this new research, hugging might deserve a place on the list too.