The Mother's Cure

It's a situation every mother has been through: Your child is stressed out or upset, but she's at school or summer camp--too far away to give her a hug. That doesn't mean she can't be comforted, though. According to a new study, talking on the phone with Mom is nearly as good as getting a hug for helping stressed kids calm down. At least for young girls, talking on the phone with their mothers reduces a key stress hormone and oxytocin, a feel-good brain chemical that is believed to play a central role in forming bonds, the study found. "The idea was that picking up the phone and calling someone would be like giving them a hug," Pollak says. Now, it looks like that may actually be true--at least if your mother is on the other end of the line.

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