Lurking Rhythmically: Gun Blog Variety Podcast #149 - I will hug you and pet you and call you George

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Gun Blog Variety Podcast #149 - I will hug you and pet you and call you George

True fact: Erin has been called a "cuddle slut". Make of that what you will.

Beth was in Washington for The DC Project: 50 women from 50 states talking to legislators about gun rights. Now she's back to tell us about it.
Two men are arrested for shooting a third to death. Sean takes a look at the suspects.
What do you do if your bank wants personally Identifiable Information? Do you just email it to them? You might be tempted to do just that, but Barron explains why that’s a terrible idea.
Have you seen the video of the angry woman burning down a house in Milwaukee? Miguel goes over some lessons learned in this horrifying video.
We welcome Special Guest Andrew Greene of the Grayguns Shooting Team to the show to talk about how competition shooting is his therapy for PTSD.
Tiffany is still on medical leave.
Have you ever wonder why Erin hugs everyone? So did she. It turns out that there's a good physiological reason for it.
In the wake of the shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise, the Loaded Conversations crew cut an emergency show to let everyone know how much they hate those who disagree with them. Weer'd has the audio fisk.
And our plug of the week is $10K for 2A. Erin has cooked up a plan to humiliate Sean at the Gun Rights Policy Conference. She just needs your help to raise $10,000 for pro gun charities to make it happen. Don't help her. Please

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Listen to the podcast here.

Read the show notes here.

Thanks to LuckyGunner and Remington for their sponsorship, and a special thanks to Firearms Policy Coalition for their support.

Blue Collar Prepping Transcript -

Hugs and Pettings

If you’re like me, when something goes wrong for someone you care about, your immediate response is to give that person a hug. I make sense of this by saying “Well, I can’t fix the problem, but I can at least help this person feel better,” and so I offer hugs. But I’ve never really been clear on WHY hugs are good for calming people.

As it turns out, the answer lies more in biology than in psychology. There are several reasons why skin-to-skin contact is amazingly helpful in reducing pain and trauma. The first is that mammals have specialized nerves which fire pleasurably when they are touched. Because these nerves are a distance apart -- half an inch or so -- a nice long scratch or stroke is needed to trigger them in sequence.

This is why, for example, holding hands is nice and all that, but a backrub is SO much better: you’re triggering more nerves in sequence. This also explains both why humans love to pet animals, and why animals love to be petted: the long, slow strokes feel good to both the petter and the petted.

Tying this in with last week’s segment on disabling the rage pathway of the brain, petting an animal is another of those slow, simple, repetitive physical activities which activates the seeking pathway. Having a pet you can stroke and cuddle is doubly helpful for helping humans overcome anger, grief, and other forms of trauma.

Hugs are similar. It’s not just the squeeze that’s important, but the whole package: sliding your arms around someone’s neck triggers those nerve clusters, as does the release. This is why hugging someone else who is hurting helps you feel better, as well.

Skin to skin contact also triggers the release of oxytocin, a hormone that increases feelings of well-being and promotes the creation of social bonds. When oxytocin goes up, the stress hormone cortisol goes down. This is yet another reason to form a prepping tribe: the presence of other humans to whom we are bonded reduces our stress and makes us feel better.

So don’t go it alone -- ask for a hug when you aren’t feeling well. Offer a hug to a friend when they’re having a rough time. And definitely have a pet you can stroke and cuddle, like a dog or a cat, because making them feel good will make you feel good.