Feeling Means Staying Alive

    Ackerman’s chapter about touch was quite interesting to me. One part that intrigued me was at the beginning of the chapter, when she talks about the importance of touch in the health and development of premature babies. As someone who was born prematurely, this subject seemed relevant to me. It is clear from Ackerman’s description and the research she cites that touch is vital to the health of babies in helping foster emotional regulation, better sleeping, improved development, and more.

    Another section that stood out to me was Ackerman’s discussion of warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals. As warm-blooded humans, we’re able to keep our body temperature higher than our surroundings, enabling us to travel to different climates and parts of the world fairly easily. On the other hand, cold-blooded animals, like reptiles and amphibians, rely on their environments to regulate their body temperature. Most of these creatures can’t migrate very far because they have to keep their body at a certain temperature based on the climate they live in. Compared with humans, cold-blooded creatures are really good at heat detection, though, because they need to be able to seek out heat to keep themselves warm. Recently, I visited my grandparents at their place in Florida and in their backyard, I found a lizard, sunning on a statue (see image below). This perfectly illustrated the concept of heat seeking for cold-blooded creatures. The feeling of sun on one’s body is really interesting to me because it’s not something tangible that you can touch and hold. And yet, I can recall countless occasions where I felt the warm radiance of the sun on my skin. For me, it’s a great feeling (as long as I don’t stay in the sun for too long or it becomes a painful, red, peeling sensation) and I can understand why so many animals do it, even warm-blooded ones. I always think of cats and dogs, sprawling out on the floor or on a chair near a window, and simply basking in the sunlight. I envy them.