Discomfort

Comfort (or being comfortable) is a sense of physical or psychological ease, often characterized as a lack of hardship. Persons who are lacking in comfort are uncomfortable, or experiencing discomfort. A degree of psychological comfort can be achieved by recreating experiences that are associated with pleasant memories, such as engaging in familiar activities, maintaining the presence of familiar objects, and consumption of comfort foods. Comfort is a particular concern in health care, as providing comfort to the sick and injured is one goal of healthcare, and can facilitate recovery. Persons who are surrounded with things that provide psychological comfort may be described as being "in their comfort zone". Because of the personal nature of positive associations, psychological comfort is highly subjective.

The use of "comfort" as a verb generally implies that the subject is in a state of pain, suffering or affliction, and requires alleviation from that state. Where the term is used to describe the support given to someone who has experienced a tragedy, the word is synonymous with consolation or . However, comfort is used much more broadly, as one can provide physical comfort to someone who is not in a position to be uncomfortable. For example, a person might sit in a chair without discomfort, but still find the addition of a pillow to the chair to increase their feeling of comfort. Like certain other terms describing positive feelings or abstractions (hope, charity, chastity), comfort may also be used as a personal name.

There are various psychological studies about the feeling of comfort, and they have resulted in a few conclusions. The idea of comfort varies among each person; however, there are a few universal themes of comfort that apply to everyone. Most of these universal themes falls under the physical comfort such as contact comfort, comfort food, and thermal comfort.

Contact comfort is the satisfaction with someone's touch, like a mother's embrace. This is essential to a child's development.

One of the most famous developmental psychological studies is Harry Harlow's development experiment with monkeys. He separated baby monkeys at birth and raised them with surrogate mothers. There were two types of surrogate mothers, a metal wire one and a one covered with cloth, and each had a nozzle that represented breast feeding. The surrogate mother covered in cloth represented comfort. At the end of the experiment, the psychologist saw that the monkeys would choose the cloth surrogate over the wire surrogate. They concluded that having basics needs is essential, but there is the need of closeness and affection.

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