Family Hug Experiment: What 21 Days of More Hugs Did

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Family Hug Experiment – Why?

So you might wonder why I decided to do a hug experiment in our family. Honestly, I wanted to see if it would make a difference in our sleeping habits, our overall moods and stress levels, and our kindness towards one another.

And while with the COVID-19 rampaging in our country, it is not something we can really engage in with strangers, hence the reason I did a family only hug experiment!

The results? You’ll have to read on for that. But first, I want to give you some of the scientific reasoning behind the hug experiment.

Scientific Findings on Hugs

Virginia Satir, a family therapist said once: “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.”

This seems like a lot, though I read this in an email one day and thought, “this is my goal for my family!”

I get excited about these kinds of ideas, and it seemed like a great goal to reach for with our small children. Teach them young, you know?

Here is what science says about hugs: hugs are good for you because they are linked to physical and mental/emotional health in your bodies. Let me explain a little more in the following sections.

Health Benefits

• Reduce stress – that supportive touch can help the person going through the stress as well as the person who is comforting them
• Keep You From Getting As Sick – since hugs reduce stress, it decreases your chances of getting sick because of your great support system
• Boost Your Heart Health – in a study done with couples, those who held hands and hugged were reported to have a decrease in blood pressure and heart rate.

Emotional Well-Being and Security

• Hugs can make us feel happier by releasing oxytocin, which can happen while cuddling and hugging (women especially) their partners and their babies.
• The magic touches of hugs can also help relieve pain and fear. Who knew?
• Hugs help us experience better moods and associations after a conflict.
• I know when I hug my husband regularly, I feel more connected to him. We also can help relieve each other’s stress.
• Many people in your life might be physical touch for their love language. Hugging is a great way to show them how much you love them!

Faith Reasons

While the Bible doesn’t talk as much about hugging as it does kissing, I kind of see it at the same. Embrace one another, love one another, along those lines.

It is important to us as a family to be loving and peaceful, and hugs help us with behavioral conflict, to offer compassion and empathy, and to comfort and love each other.

So was the overall goal of our hug experiment.

Our Hug Experiment

Now we get to the fun part: the actual hug experiment.

If I could get my children to hug or be hugged 12 times a day, I believe I would see measurable differences in how we acted, slept, and interacted with each other.

As a SAHM with 3 small children, a mom will try anything for more peace and good-naturedness around her home. Amiright?

How It Was laid Out

I used this chart that I quickly created with PowerPoint. Then I taped it on our wall and did my best to record all the hugs in a day for each person.

It included hugs they received and gave in one little neat box. I just used tick marks to keep the process simple, and dates all of the tops of the boxes to keep track of which day it was.

How Long We Experiemented

I decided to do 3 weeks, or 21 days (since new habits take at least 21 days to develop/form) to see if the experiment would stick and to see if I found a difference on certain days of the week or as time went on.

What it Looked Like in the End

Here is a photo of our completed chart – plus some notes on the experiment.

• Some days I was not as good at recording the hugs, though most days were pretty accurate. If anything, I tried to make sure I didn’t put too many hugs and the number be really off.
• As you can see, we averaged 20-30 hugs a week, though since my hubby is only around in the evenings, he had less.
• I gave a majority of these hugs, thought after a while the kids started hugging each other more often, sometimes without being prompted!
• The first week went really well with adding in extra hugs. After that, it seemed like either I forgot to record them or give them as much. But I suppose that is the chance you take to remember something like that.

Hug Experiment results

What I noticed/Learned

1. The number of hugs did not really make a difference in how we acted, at least not that I could tell.
2. After about a week, I noticed that the kids were more willing to hug after hurting one another or being rude, which was in improvement from before. Now, they often already have their arms open after the naughty deed. So perhaps a lesson on forgiveness and compassion? Only time will tell.
3. My 1-year-old started reaching for hugs more often from his siblings and dad (so cool, since he is a total mama’s boy!) He also gives his cousins hugs more willingly than before.
4. On the days that I made a point to give more than just a few hugs, I felt more connected to my kids (it didn’t always improve my mood or their behavior, however, so that was a slight disappointment)
5. The hug experiment helped me be more intentional about loving my husband in his love language, which is physical touch.
6. Often, when dad does get home, my two older kids ask for a hug from him. They will also request one in the morning if they are awake when he leaves for work.
7. We did not reach my 12 hugs/day goal by any means, but the other side benefits from the hug experiment are a plus!

How the Kids Acted/Slept/Ate

I was hoping that hugging more would decrease stress levels, keep the kids calm, and simply help them act, sleep, and eat better.

Well, I should have known better.

• Their behavior did not change much, but I tried my best to react to their behavior with more compassion and willingness to listen and comfort if necessary
• The sleep patterns were thrown off anyway due to a change in sleeping arrangements, and just the general ages of my children and their difficulty to fall asleep. It does seem to be helping my 2-year-old fall asleep faster, though that could be attributed to many different causes
• Eating has been a touch-and-go subject around here anyway. One day the toddlers will eat everything; the next, they are picky as can be. My 1-yr-old already makes it his mission to try everything, so no eating issues there.

On the up-side, I think that my hubby and I are enjoying the benefits fo less stress and more restful sleep: for the most part.

How my Marriage Was Affected

Next time, I need to make sure that my husband gets exclusive hugs from me. The kids were really good about giving Dad hugs when he came home from work, and we tried to be more intentional as well.

My husband’s totals were the lowest; mostly because he wasn’t around much during the weekdays to experience the love the rest of us were giving and receiving. His weekends were more affectionate with extra hugs.

I’m not saying it made our marriage that much more amazing, but it sure didn’t hurt it!

Pros + Cons of Hugging

Just in case you read nothing else of this hug experiment post, here is the rundown of the whole thing.

Pros

• Happier feeling
• Less stress, more security, and help surrounds you
• More connected to the people you love
• Spreading love and compassion to those close to you
• Connected to better health all around

Cons

• I don’t think there are any cons to hugging, unless you have a baby is full of food or something and gets you all messy…but seriously, who cares?

Conclusion

Are We a Hugging Family Now?

I can say that I feel we are more apt to hug each other now, whether someone is happy or sad, whether they need to apologize or just snuggle. It is my deepest hope that we will continue to foster and be the kind of family that “hugs”!

Obviously, hugs can’t hurt us, and this hug experiment just revealed that we really do like hugs, and should implement them more often.

Moving Forward with Our Hug Experiment

Speaking for myself, I like to make sure that each one of my kids has at least 1-3 hugs from me a day. It takes a thinking shift (and an intentional commitment as well) to implement it more and to be consistent (as my hug experiment results revealed we weren’t the best at).

However, I will especially be noticing our need for hugs more, especially in my children. And my husband also loves these hugs, so it really helps our marriage relationship, too. It’s all a work in progress, of course.

Combine those benefits with the scientific benefits listed earlier, and there is simply no reason to hold back hugs any more in your family!

Conduct a hug experiment for yourself, or post a reminder around your house to incite the warm, loving, and healing touch in your family.

Download a FREE copy of my HUG EXPERIMENT SHEET! to try for yourself!

Download FREE 4 Pretty printables about hugs for you to hang as a reminder!

How do you think hugs would help your family?

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