Physical Contact, A Natural Pain Reliever
Something as simple as holding someone’s hand reduces your perception of pain. An analgesic effect that occurs even when you are not in an emotional relationship.
A few weeks ago I found myself in a situation of some difficulty in an emergency box: I had been in pain for several hours and was about to be treated with a maneuver that was necessarily going to produce more acute momentary pain.
It was a tense moment: “Take a deep breath, here we go,” one of the two nurses told me. A third person, a nursing assistant, was next to me and held out his hand.
I squeezed it, released it and squeezed it again a few times … Elle told me: “press hard if you want, you won’t hurt me.” The maneuver ended successfully and I let go of my hand. I thanked him and saw his face for the first time. We hadn’t looked at each other before.
Contact alone blocks the sensation of pain
Empathy or something else? Once the problem was overcome, I have been mentally reviewing that moment that in reality should have lasted no more than 30 seconds.
Why holding someone’s hand can ease pain? What happened, was it real pain relief, or did the aide just help me get through a difficult time by showing her empathy? Days later I decided to find the answer to my questions.
I came across the case of childbirth, when the loved one shakes the hand of the one who is giving birth. But here there are brain, hormonal and physiological mechanisms at play that were not produced between me and the assistant.
I found several experiments with couples in which the perception of pain with and without physical contact, and with and without eye contact was assessed.
The results were interesting, but the value of the affective relationship in a couple was always at stake. A whole world of interactions in which the hormone oxytocin surely plays an important role.
But in my case there was no emotional factor, there was only physical contact. Without eye contact, the mirror neurons that allow us to feel empathy could not even be activated. But the contact must have synchronized our brain waves.
Two people who bring their hands together until they interlock start an exchange of body information. Brains synchronize and send momentary pain blocking signals . They are coupled at the level of the central regions of the person who suffers it and the right hemisphere of the person observing it.
We have just discovered how simply shaking hands is an effective pain reliever.
