Feel Less Pain at Doctor’s Office By Just Turning Away
You ever notice when you have to get a shot from the doctor he always tells you "oh, it'll only hurt a pinch?" Then next thing you know you're screaming like a school girl at a Justin Bieber concert!
Well, one German researcher has figured out that if you simply turn your head when the needle is injected it tends to hurt less.
Marion Höfle explains that “Throughout our lives, we repeatedly experience that needles cause pain when pricking our skin, but situational expectations, like information given by the clinician prior to an injection, may also influence how viewing needle pricks affects pain.”
Höfle’s team studied participants watching video clips of hands being pricked by a needle or just hands alone as the participants also received painful or non-painful electrical stimuli applied to their own hands.
The bottom line was they complained of more pain from the electrical stimuli when watching videos of the needle pricks than just seeing clips of hands. So their recommendation is to simply look away.
What a concept? I must be a genius because I've been doing that for years!