In a moment of stress, there’s a quick way that might help you calm yourself, researchers say: Place your hand on your heart for 20 seconds.
Most of us have probably had the experience of feeling comforted by a hug, but we don’t always have that option if we’re heading into a presentation at work or facing another potentially anxiety-producing situation.
Studies suggest that briefly placing a hand on your heart or abdomen can lower the stress hormone cortisol.
“The main finding was that before a stressful situation, doing 20 seconds of this gesture can lower the physiological stress response,” said Aljoscha Dreisoerner, a lecturer at the University of Graz Institute of Psychology in Austria and the lead author on a 2021 study that looked at the phenomenon.
In his study, 159 participants were told they would have just minutes to prepare for a presentation to a panel of strangers, where they would be asked to count backward from 2,043 in increments of 17.
They were assigned one of three stress-abatement “support measures” before their presentations, including self-soothing touch for 20 seconds, meaning placing one hand over their heart and one on their abdomen. Others received a 20-second hug, and the third group made paper airplanes.
Participants who practiced self-soothing touch or received a hug had lower levels of cortisol than those who made a paper airplane.
The researchers found no differences in participants’ heart rates or how stressed they said they felt.
“For cortisol, it helped blunt the response,” Dreisoerner said, noting that the hand-over-heart method brought a lower cortisol response in saliva tests than the group that received the hug, but the difference was not statistically significant.
Scientists are still examining why a hand on the heart seems to lessen cortisol. Dreisoerner hypothesized that it involves oxytocin, a hormone associated with promoting calm and reducing stress in the body.
“Some preliminary evidence shows that self-touch can elicit an oxytocin response,” he said. Still, “it’s hard to pinpoint because this literature is so young.”
Dreisoerner said self-soothing touch is another name for self-compassionate touch, a simple gesture that is often accompanied by deep breaths.
“I view it as a comprehensive intervention that works from both angles. It has a physical component and a psychological component,” he said. “Self-soothing touch is an embodied way to express self-compassion.”
In another study, published this year, Dreisoerner and his colleagues randomly assigned 78 people they identified as “chronically stressed” to practice either self-soothing touch or a brief meditation for five minutes daily over two weeks. In both groups, all participants reported feeling less stressed, tired and lonely immediately afterward.
“There’s a lot of research showing that one of the most basic pathways to self-compassion is through the body,” said Kristin Neff, a pioneering researcher in the field, and founder and president of the Self-Compassion Institute, an Austin-based company that offers workshops and coaching.
Self-compassion — staying attuned to your needs and avoiding harsh self-judgement — has been studied for decades, and has been linked to mental health benefits and overall improved well-being.
Neff, who was not involved in the studies, said the physical warmth and pressure of touch can signal safety to the nervous system.
“Touch is an expression of care,” she said. “You start with the body, and it’s easier for the mind to say: ‘I’m here for you. I care about you.’”
Neff said putting a hand over your heart has become the most common mode of self-compassionate touch.
“The heart center, the chest center, is where we feel the emotion of love and care,” she said. “The physical touch of the hand on the heart, the warmth of the hand on the heart, I think just naturally evokes those responses.”
The body of research for self-compassionate touch is smaller than that of self-compassion more broadly.
Ashley Batts Allen, a self-compassion researcher and professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, said the 2021 study is scientifically sound, but it’s not clear whether physical contact alone accounted for the differences in cortisol levels.
Participants also took deep breaths and were instructed to focus on the warmth and pressure of their hands. The lowered cortisol could have come from the touch, the breathing, the warmth, the pressure or a combination.
“I would love to see more studies that disentangle everything, so we can really nail down what exactly it is that’s having the impact,” she said.
Other studies have built on Dreisoerner’s work by exploring whether self-compassionate touch can improve well-being when practiced regularly, and whether it outperforms other simple physical exercises, such as finger tapping.
Eli Susman, a psychologist and author of the forthcoming book “Micropractice,” led a 2024 study at the University of California at Berkeley, in which 135 U.S. college students were assigned to do self-compassionate touch or a finger-tapping exercise, which involves tapping each finger to their thumb on the same hand. Participants were asked to practice their assigned exercises for 20 seconds at least once a day for one month. They completed questionnaires at the beginning of the study and again a month later about their self-compassion, stress and mental health symptoms.
Of the 45 participants who practiced their assigned exercise nearly every day, those in the self-touch group reported greater mental health improvements than those in the finger-tapping group.
“The more you do it, the more you’re going to benefit,” Susman said.
In another study published this month in Scientific Reports, Susman and his colleagues asked nearly 500 people to perform an exercise where they placed one hand over the heart and the other over the abdomen. All the participants were encouraged to practice the exercise, or something similar, daily for six months, and half were also given training on how to create and sustain habits.
The participants who were given habit-building tools practiced about two more times per week than those who were not given the tools. They also reported increased self-compassion after three and six months, and a greater reduction in negative mental health symptoms after six months.
“We did find that the stronger of a habit it became, the stronger of a reduction in stress they had,” Susman said.
The biggest limitation of all the existing studies on self-compassionate touch is simple: There is not enough research to confirm what scientists believe to be true.
“We need more studies on this … to see if the effect is robust,” said Dreisoerner, adding that future research should involve larger, more diverse groups.
How to try it
The experts we talked to recommend placing one or both hands on your heart or abdomen, or one on each. Take a few deep breaths, and focus on the warmth and pressure for about 20 seconds.
Neff cautioned that this may not feel comforting to everyone. As an alternative, she suggested finding other forms of physical grounding, such as feeling the soles of your feet against the floor, or touching something soft.
“All you need is 20 seconds,” Neff said. “You are your own best scientist. That’s how you’re really going to see how this is going to work.”
While self-compassionate touch is not a proven treatment or substitute for professional care, in a moment of stress, it may be worth trying — and taking note of how it feels.
“The right way to practice self-compassion is what works for you,” Neff said. “There’s no one pathway in for everyone.”
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