The best analgesic: hand-holding

               Have you ever seen a pregnant woman who just before giving a birth catches bed frame or grabs a husband's hand? When a person feel severe pain, naturally catches the hand of a lover or grasps himself. Just by holding your loved one’s hand can stabilizes your mind and increases your bond with others. And it has been scientifically proven that grabbing the opponent’s hand can change your brain waves and reduce your pain.

        According to the research, holding hands during pain administration increases brain-to-brain coupling in a network that mainly involves the central regions of the pain target and the right hemisphere of the pain observer. To examine the association between brain-to-brain coupling and pain relief, researchers with the University of Colorado Boulder and University of Haifa recruited 22 heterosexual couples, ages 23-32 years who had been together for at least one year and put them through several two-minute scenarios as electroencephalography (EEG) caps measured their brainwave activity. This was followed by six conditions in which romantic partners were instructed to hold hands or to sit together with no physical contact or to sit in separate rooms during the pain vs. no-pain conditions. Then they repeated the scenarios as the woman was subjected to mild heat pain on her arm.

        Experimental result shows that empathic accuracy in the partner touch–pain condition was higher than in the no-touch–pain condition, indicating that touch increases empathic accuracy between the partners. The ratings of the target of pain in the partner touch–pain condition were significantly lower than in the partner no-touch–pain condition and in the pain-alone condition, confirming that touch had an analgesic effect.

        The aim of the present study was to test whether interpersonal touch during pain enhances brain-to-brain real-time coupling between the target of the pain and the observer, and whether brain-to-brain coupling is associated with touch-related analgesia and with the partner’s empathic accuracy. And found that the power of partner touch–pain coupling is related to the degree of pain analgesia in the target and to the partner’s empathic accuracy.

        Holding hands is closely related to human nature for a long time. Babies who are just born now also show "Palmar Grasp Reflex", which grasps their mothers' fingers with their own hands. This can be regarded as a part of the human being that is already inherent before it is born. Touching between people has important social and emotional significance. Touching one’s shoulder gives comfort, holding hands each others means they love each other and put arms around each other’s shoulder express their friendship.In a life without warm physical contact, there is a tendency to suffer emotional and psychological distress, such as anxiety or depression. In a busy modern society, didn't we forget the physical interaction between people? Didn’t we feel hard to say something? How about holding hand of a loved one once today. Sometimes holding one's hands gives more effective result than any other words. Physical contact is essential for human development and life beyond mere comfort. 

“Love heals all wounds” is not proverb anymore. Let's holding hands of loved ones today!

References

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180301094822.htm

http://www.pnas.org/content/115/11/E2528