Author | Chen Zhihan Source | Science and Technology Propaganda and Cultural Resource Library
When thinking, hold your chin when you are worried, touch your forehead when you are worried, and pick acne from time to time... Have you ever counted how many times you touch your face in a day?
According to a study published in the American Journal of Infection Control, an average person touches their face 23 times an hour. And, in most cases, it is an unconscious behavior.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, this "habitual bad habit" has worried doctors - because it does increase the probability of the virus entering the body. However, when they strongly called for "don't touch your face", they found that touching their face seemed to have already been engraved into everyone's DNA, which is difficult to abandon.
Why is this?
begins in the early stages of life
When human cubs have not opened their eyes to see the world, they may have been a little sensitive to touch.
The research team at University College London, UK, scanned the baby's electroencephalography (EGG) after touching the face. The results showed that their brains already responded to facial touches. Researchers speculate that through keen facial perception, they can determine the mother's orientation, thereby enjoying breast milk more "steady, accurate and ruthless".
. In order to strive for excellence and further improve their sensory ability, they seem to start practicing in uterus - starting from their own face.
So, the instinct to touch the face begins in the uterus. It is a sign of healthy development and a primary sign of facial sensory neurodevelopment.
I touch my face, I exist
When I grow up, some people may develop "face touch" into a habit. Just like "getting your nails", if you do enough, you may be able to learn by the basal ganglion area in the brain (controlling and storing the required movement) and then repeat.
But some psychologists believe that the deep meaning of touching the face lies in the awakening of "self-awareness".
In public, people subconsciously show their "perfect" selves. At this time, touching their faces is the best way to perceive themselves and assist in "face management".
According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, when jazzologists of the Chinese Academy of Sciences verified the issue of "whether rhesus monkeys have self-awareness", they also touched their faces when looking in the mirror, as an important reference standard.
Monkey looking in the mirror
Another study published in Journal of the Royal Society B also confirms the above argument. The study found that most of the volunteers' face-touching behaviors are concentrated near their noses, and the inhaled air flow exceeds 15% of their usual breathing.
This shows that they are "very interested" in themselves and are collecting their own scent information intentionally or unintentionally. From a psychological point of view, this is also an hinting that "I am me, a different firework."
Once upon a time, touching the face ≈ speaking
self-awareness theory is similar to another guess proposed by evolutionists.
The latter believes that in the early stages of language, in order to better express oneself and communicate with others, humans must rely on a large number of physical movements. So at the beginning, touching the face should have some special expression significance. For example, an anthropology research pointed out that touching the forehead with the palm of your hand can express your surrender to the leader of the tribe.
Later, with the development of human language and the improvement of pronunciation, these body movements gradually lost their meaning. To this day, words are enough to help people convey their thoughts clearly and clearly, but early communication habits may still be partially left and continue as habitual actions of modern humans.
Touch your face and keep calm
Another part of scholars believe that the real purpose of people's spontaneous face touching behavior is to regulate their emotions and calm themselves.
Neurologists at the University of Miami in the United States pointed out that a large number of nerve endings gather on the face and touched regularly can stimulate nerve activity and thus affect the body's hormone levels. For example, after touching the face, the levels of oxytocin and dopamine will increase, and cortisol will decrease. The former is beneficial to relieve negative emotions and make people happy, while the latter can stimulate stress.
This also explains why people involuntarily increase the frequency of face touching when they are anxious, nervous or focused. After analyzing the types of nerves in different parts of the face, researchers also gave guidance: touching the mouth has the strongest soothing effect, while touching the tip of the nose is the most helpful to relieve short-term stress. How can I resist touching
?
During the COVID-19 period, in order to avoid the virus entering the human body, medical staff recommend: do not touch the face.
But how can I hold it back? To solve this problem, the researchers are very worried.
health experts point out that the most effective method may be to "not touch the face" - for example, by wearing gloves, masks, etc., prohibit physical contact between hands and face; or after sitting down, press your hands under your legs. Other scholars have suggested that they should minimize complex problems and avoid anxiety (although difficult to do).
But Kevin Chapman, a psychologist at the National Center for Social Anxiety, pointed out that the more you are worried about "face touching" behavior, the more you may touch it. Therefore, instead of being overly anxious, it is better to wash your hands frequently!
References
https://www.livescience.com/why-hard-to-stop-touching-face.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/202108/why-we-touch-our-faces-so-much
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-11-newborn -babies-brain-responses.html
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-monkeys-taught-mirror-self-awareness.html
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1715554382565454526wfr=spiderfor=pc
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