00:00Imagine if every time you said hello to a friend, you were actually checking them for
00:03hidden daggers and secretly sniffing their chemical signals.
00:06It sounds like something out of a spy movie, but that is exactly why the handshake became
00:10our go-to greeting over 3,000 years ago.
00:12Have you ever wondered why we grab a stranger's hand and wiggle it up and down instead of
00:16just waving from a distance?
00:18Well, the first big question we have to answer is where this whole tradition even started.
00:22The earliest evidence we have of a handshake comes from a stone carving all the way back
00:25in the 9th century BC, which shows as Assyrian king shaking hands with a Babylonian ruler
00:30to seal a very important alliance.
00:32By the 5th century BC, in ancient Greece, handshakes were appearing on gravestone to show a final
00:36farewell or an eternal bond between family members.
00:39But why did they choose the hands specifically?
00:41This brings us to a really practical question, was the handshake actually about safety?
00:45In the ancient world, extending your empty right hand was a very direct way of saying
00:49that you were not holding a weapon and did not plan to hurt the other person.
00:52In ancient Rome, people would even grab each other's forearms instead of just a hand to
00:56make sure there was not a knife hidden inside a sleeve.
00:59This also explains why we specifically shake the hand up and down.
01:02Historian believes that medieval knights would shake hands vaguely asleep to force any hidden
01:06daggers or small weapons to fall out of the other person's clothing and onto the ground.
01:10So you would not have to worry about hidden swords anymore.
01:12Why does a handshake sleeve feel so much more present than a simple knot?
01:16The answer to this question is hidden deep inside your brain and evokes a special chemical
01:20called oxytocin.
01:20Scientists often call oxytocin the bonding hormone because it helps us be stressed and
01:24feels a sense of connection with other people.
01:26When you touch hands with someone, your body releases a burst of this chemical, which helps
01:31you feel more comfortable and ready to collaborate.
01:33This is why research shows that people who shake hands before a big negotiation or a business
01:37meeting are actually more honest and much more likely to reach a deal that makes everyone
01:41happy.
01:41But here is the weirdest question of all.
01:43Are we actually using handshake to sniff each other?
01:45It sounds gross, but studies have found that after we shake someone's hand, we unconsciously
01:50bring our own hand up to our nose to get a whiff of that person's chemical signal.
01:54We do this without even realizing it, and we do it about twice as often after a handshake
01:59than we normally do.
02:00Just like other animals, we are using these social chemicals to figure out things about the
02:04other person, like how stressed they are or how much power they have in the room.
02:08So, how did this move from being a weapon check to being a polite way to say hello?
02:12You can actually thank a group called the Quakers in the 17th century.
02:15Back then, people used to bow or tick their heads, but the Quakers thought this case were
02:19too formal and that everyone should be treated as equals.
02:21They popularized the simple hand clap as a way to show that no one was better than anyone
02:25else, and by the 1800s, it became the global standard for being polite.
02:29This leads us to our final question.
02:31Is the handshake finally going to disappear after everything we have been through so recently?
02:35During the pandemic, many of us wish to elbow bump or waving from a distance to stay safe,
02:39and some experts think we might never go back to handshakes being the only way to say hello.
02:43However, most researchers believe the handshake is so deeply weird into our biology and our
02:47history that it will probably stick around for another 3,000 years.
02:50Even if we accept new ways to greet each other, that physical touch remains one of the most
02:54powerful tools we have built human trust.
02:56Next time you shake someone's hand, just remember that you are participating in an ancient ritual.
03:01That is part weapon checking, part chemical scan, and part brain health.
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