As the season gets colder, we tend to crave human warmth. Interestingly, even hugging yourself can have significant benefits. Self-touch, such as comforting yourself by touching your body, reduces the stress hormone cortisol more effectively than "hugs from strangers." Tsuchiya-san, do you think this could be useful in your department? (Maybe not.)

"Self-touch reduces stress more than loveless hugs"

Thatʼs interesting. There are YouTubers who do "give me a hug" campaigns, and while they have various outward meanings, the YouTubers themselves might find it therapeutic. (Even though the hugs are between strangers, you can see the warm atmosphere through the screen.) While looking at the site Yamamoto-san introduced, I found an article that interested me.
When researching as a UR team, we sometimes find that things commonly believed about parenting are actually myths. This is one of those discoveries. I genuinely want to raise my children with correct knowledge... Sorry for the tangent.

"Violent games do not make people aggressive"

I played GTA5, but it didnʼt change my mindset, haha.
However, the article doesnʼt mention if the participants were children, so they were probably adults.
I think it might be risky for people who canʼt distinguish between right and wrong to play this game.

Speaking of games, I remember feeling a strange sense of guilt when I accidentally killed an enemy in Metal Gear Solid (a game where you infiltrate enemy bases without being detected) due to a button press error. However, I quickly got used to it. I donʼt think it affected my behavior in the real world, though. My actions were limited to pressing buttons on a controller, but Iʼm curious about whether playing highly realistic VR games like GTA will impact human behavior.

Thanks. I think that with "hugs with love," oxytocin is released, which makes us feel happier. However, providing such a service consistently is challenging, so maybe self-hugging could be useful (or maybe not). If a person doesnʼt love themselves, it might not work well. While writing this, I thought that even if the hug doesnʼt come from someone who loves you, if you feel loved, the supply stability of such comfort might increase.

Thatʼs deep--and a bit scary.

Itʼs similar to having a pet. The person hugging the pet (the owner) feels significant happiness from their love, but whether the dog being hugged loves the owner is actually unknown.

I just remembered a few years ago I saw something about "calming clothes for dogs." These clothes apply pressure to make the dog feel like itʼs being hugged, reducing excessive barking and agitation. For humans, itʼs unclear whether the crucial factor for stress relief is the pressure or the hug itself.

I want one for my dog.
Whether a hug is about pressure or love... thatʼs deep.