Looking Reduces Pain

Injections are less painful if you resist the natural impulse to look away, scientists have claimed. People had a higher pain threshold if they looked at the arm or hand being treated. The body naturally reduces the pain experienced if the limb or body part affected is focused on visually. If the body part was made to appear larger, by using a mirror, then the analgesic effect of simply looking was also increased. The study shows that pain is both sensory and emotional in the way in which is it experienced and could lead the way for new treatments for pain.