Cross your Arm, Confuse your brain & relieve pain

Simply crossing your hands confuses your brain and distracts it from any pain being administered, a study suggests.The brain is used to your left hand carrying out tasks on your left hand side and the right hand carrying out tasks on the right.By crossing them, the brain is momentarily bamboozled and this makes it less susceptible to pain.
Researchers think the theory has most impact on pain felt in the hands, and have not yet tested it on other parts of the body."Perhaps when we get hurt, we should not only 'rub it better' but also cross our arms," said Dr Giandomenico Iannetti, the lead author of the study at the University College London.
In the study, scientists used a laser to generate a four millisecond pin prick of "pure pain" – which is pain without touch – on the hands of a small group of eight participants, which was repeated with the arms crossed.The hands were over the midline – an imaginary line running vertically down the centre of the body. Participants rated their perception of the intensity of the pain, and their electrical brain responses were also measured using electroencephalography (EEG) scanner.
The pain was rated from 0 to 100, with 100 being the most pain you could possibly imagine.
The results from both participants' reports and the EEG showed that the perception of pain was weaker when the arms were crossed.The effect is said to be "small but significant" and equivalent to a reduction in pain of around three per cent, the study claims.Dr Iannetti believes that the effect was caused by the brain being confused."In everyday life you mostly use your left hand to touch things on the left side of the world, and your right hand for the right side of the world – for example when picking up a glass of water on your right side you generally use your right hand," he said.
"Crossing your hands causes a mismatch and this makes the processing of pain more difficult.
"It works for other stimuli. The sensitivity of the brain is reduced. It is not a huge analgesic but we are testing it on people with chronic pain in their hands."

Source: University College London.
 

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