A new study says that our brain is confused by simply the crossing of your hands and distracts it from pain being felt. The brain is conditioned to your right hand doing tasks for the right side and the left hand doing tasks for the left side. By crossing them the brain falls into a momentary state of confusion making it less susceptible to pain.
The researchers concluded that the hands are where most of the impact of pain was felt and have not as of yet done testing on other parts on the body. Perhaps not only rubbing it harder but crossing our arms when we get hurt will help said, Dr. Giandomenico Iannetti the University College London lead author of the study.
A laser to administer a four millisecond pin prick of pure pain, that is pain without a touch was used on eight participants’ hands and then repeated with their arms crossed. The hands were over the imaginary midline that runs vertically down the body’s centre.
The perception of intensity of pain was rated by the participants as well as the registering of electrical pain responses being measured using an EEG scanner. The pain was measured on a scale of 0 to 100 with the most pain ever imagined being 100.
The results showed on both the EEG and the participants reporting that pain was perceived to be less when the people’s arms were crossed. The effect is thought to be about 3% of a reduction which is categorized as small but significant and Dr. Iannetti thinks the brain was briefly confused therefore less pain was perceived.
