Cold Shoulder Isn’t Just a Metaphor

The poets were right about the chill of isolation and rejection — more, perhaps, than even they knew: when a person feels lonely or is being excluded by others, his or her skin literally becomes colder.

Full editorial in the New York Times.

Comments (7)

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  1. Jordan says:

    Crazy.

  2. Alice says:

    “It seems as if the body can be fooled into feeling welcomed by applying a little warmth in the right places. And the effect is reciprocal: studies in our own lab and at Yale have found that adults and young children are more social after they’ve touched something warm.”

    Brain and body all mixed up.

  3. Studebaker says:

    The poets were right about the chill of isolation and rejection…

    You have to wonder about someone who tries to make a living as a poet. Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) made a good living at it; but most who try find their financial prospects poor. Maybe friends give poets the cold shoulder to avoid being hit up for a loan or having to listen to a diatribe about how their latest collections of poems didn’t sell.

  4. seyyed says:

    interesting

  5. Mae says:

    Mosts authors write how they feel.

  6. Neil Caffrey says:

    Makes sense, dont we usually associate warm feelings with love and happiness?

  7. Thomas says:

    Free hugs’ appeal just grew.