When you have a health problem, it helps to know the causes so that you can address them. Wouldn’t it be great if the cause was just one missing vitamin or minor adjustment to our exercise habits. Unfortunately, health reflects our social and physical surroundings—and what is more, the causes stretch back through time.

how touch influences somatic empathy

There is a controversial idea that (from a biological perspective) empathy is actually quite selfish. But I if you look deeper, this conclusion is, itself, coming from an overly individualistic perspective.

It seems medicine is finally shifting away from the idea that the body is an organic machine. Functional medicine has arrived.

Emotions and pain so readily spread between people that researchers describe them as “contagious”. The automatic sharing of emotional state (affect) happens all the time without our knowing. However, sometimes we notice that we are sharing how others are feeling and when this happens social neuroscientists call it somatic empathy…