Look away!

Even the hardiest of souls have some things which make their calves run like custard and turn the blood in their veins turn into an iced confection. For some people it will be finger nails being dragged down a blackboard (are you wincing at the mere thought?), for others it will be the bowel dissolving moment of looking over the edge of a cliff, and for many it will be the prospect of an otherwise benign medical professional advancing with a reassuring demeanour and a needle held upright before them. Yes, even when you are perfectly healthy and the needle is only for a traveller’s vaccine the prospect of that length of metal biting into your innocent flesh is not one that pleases the contemplation. The advice “Don’t look and it won’t hurt so much” offered by your conciliatory medico seems trite but in fact, it might be excellent advice after all.

In a new study subjects watched video clips of either a needle pricking a hand, a cotton-bud touching a hand, or just a hand alone. The clips were shown on a screen above the subject’s own hand simulating the impression that the hand belonged to them. As the subjects watched the clips they were given either a painful or non-painful electrical stimulus to their own hand.

Overall, the subjects reported that the pain they felt from the stimulus was more painful when they saw a needle pricking a hand than when they saw just a hand or a hand being touched by a cotton-bud.

At the same time there was a measured increase in activity in the autonomic nervous system as measured by dilation of pupils.

As an additional part of the experiment, subjects were told that either the needle or the cotton-bud were more likely to be associated with painful than non-painful stimuli. When subjects saw clips that they had been led to believe would be associated with more painful stimuli, either the needle or the cotton-bud, they rated the pain they experienced as more intense.

It all shows that expectation plays an integral role in the experience of pain and next time you are about to be injected you can reduce the pain by not looking. There might of course be all sorts of instances in life where pain could be reduced by not looking: episodes of Neighbours or Home and Away for instance. One hopes too that kind-hearted executioners across the centuries may have helped their clients on their way with a caring, “Don’t look and it won’t hurt so much.”