IS
TO
C
K
other part was inoperable), which is typically
fatal within a few years. Separated from her hus-
band, with grown children, in 2007 she moved
back to Scotland and in 2015 started volunteer-
ing with the Iris Cancer Partnership, a charity
that provides massages to cancer patients from
specially trained therapists. Joannie applies her
IT skills on the board of Iris, and as a patient
receives a massage every three weeks from her
own personal massage therapist and now friend,
Angela Secretan.
“I can go in feeling exhausted and headachy.
She’ll massage my head or my back, and she does
ref lexolog y on my feet. She seems to know
instinctively what I need and together we decided
what is best for me at that moment. It is always
just gorgeous and I come out feeling everything is
okay again.”
Joannie feels her regular massages, as well as
her adopting the attitude that her tumors were a
gift that brought new relationships into her life,
have kept her alive after others with the same
diagnosis have died.
As well as sustaining life, the emotional con-
nection of touch therapy can also have a profound
effect at life’s end. Simon Robey knows that well.
He’s the coordinator of complementary therapies
and the interim head of supportive care for St.
Joseph’s Hospice, in east London. As part of its
care the hospice provides, all free of charge, a wide
range of touch therapies not only to their dying
patients, but to their loved ones and families, who
are all under an inordinate amount of stress.
Robey describes the experience of a young
woman, in her early 30s, who was hours away from
death. The family was supportive, staying by her
bedside day and night, but the therapist offered
additional support massaging the dying woman’s
hands, legs and feet. “She was drifting in and out
of consciousness...but we all noticed she became
remarkably more relaxed; she really responded to
those sensory touches. For the family there was
something quite reassuring that it helped make
her final hours more comfortable.”
So how do we get more loving touch while we are
hale and hearty, into our day-to-day lives? For
some, the answer is “cuddle parties” – a non-sex-
ual, three-plus-hour social event in which partici-
pants do just that – cuddle.
The Irish Cuddle Salon is held in Dublin on the
third Sunday of every month. Wendy Stephens
heard about it from a friend. As a single woman“Maximizing touch in your life is
a good thing – whether it is a
therapeutic massage, holding
hands or petting a dog.”
- Dr. David Linden
living near Dublin, she was nervous and thought it
might be uncomfortable. But she found it a “beau-
tiful, grounding experience” and hasn’t missed a
month ever since. It improves her sleep and her
appetite and decreases any feeling of loneliness,
and she is more comfortable within herself.
Neuroscientist Linden says however you do it,
working within cultural ideas and rules, “maxi-
mi z i n g t ouch i n you r l i fe i s a good t h i n g ” – whet her
it is a therapeutic massage, holding hands, petting
a dog, going to the hairdresser, hugging our kids,
our partner or even a stranger.
“When we put our hands on each other,” wrote
L i nden wit h c o -aut hor Ma r t h a T homa s i n a re c ent
issue of AARP The Magazine, “we’re tapping into
deep associations between touch and emotion
that are kindled at the dawn of life.” bhbest health AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2019 49
WELLNESS UPDATE