Hug for a slow count of twenty

Warm touch before a stressful moment lowers the body's response to it: smaller rise in blood pressure and heart rate, less stress hormone. That's been shown in the lab with couples holding hands and hugging before a speech task, and across a large review of touch studies. Evidence: solid

You've read it "releases oxytocin". Maybe. Oxytocin in blood and saliva is hard to measure reliably, and the twenty seconds comes from one study's protocol, not from a dose test. What's shown is the calmer body, not the chemistry. Evidence: decent

Whether regular hugging makes the relationship better months later is less studied. Evidence: worth trying It's cheap to find out.