Skin hunger is a psychologically recognized condition, something that many people might be experiencing for the first time during the lock-down. The variety of touch receptors in our skin serve to communicate safety and comfort, sometimes in ways you may not recognize. For example, the full-body contact offered by water in a bath is one of the reasons it’s so relaxing. This article does a nice job of breaking down the science behind it.

In this post I’ll talk about two solutions to skin hunger during lock-down. Whether for your children or for yourself, these simple solutions address the physiology in a direct way. You cannot talk yourself out of having innate sensory needs.

The first solution is to use exfoliating shower gloves on bare skin. Use as long and as continuous strokes as possible. Remember that you are doing this to create soothing input into your nervous system, not necessarily to exfoliate. You can do it on your arms during the day. If you are doing a full-body lymphatic flush, move from back to front and always towards the heart.

The second solution is to put something weighted on top of your torso why you lie on your back. You can do this during the savasana at the end of your yoga session. You can do it for a 3-minute grounding break from the computer during the day. Use something that is not too heavy, but has enough pressure that is satisfying. You can put a heavy book on a flat pillow.

Or you can buy a buckwheat pillow and use it as the weight, which means you can also lie on your side and hug it as well. The deep pressure is calming. The ability to hug something that is not too mushy in essence “hugs you back” through the deep pressure you create inside of yourself. Your child might find molding herself to the buckwheat pillow more satisfying that hugging a soft toy.