Crossing Your Arms Reduces Pain: A Possible Neurological Source For Arm Crossing Body Language
Christopher Philip
Researchers at University College, London have concluded that by simply crossing your arms across the mid-point of your body, pain is significantly reduced by confusing the brain. “Perhaps when we get hurt, we should not only “rub it better” but also cross our arms,” said Dr Giandomenico Iannetti, lead author of the paper from the UCL department of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience.
The scientists think that the brain confuses the information between the brain’s map – the one for your body and the other for the external space. We usually use our left hand to interact with the left side of our world and the right for our right side, but when we switch the two around, the maps are mismatched and what we get is weakened signals. This results in less pain felt.
The study was done with a laser which produced four milliseconds of pain through a pin prick to the hand. This was pain done without the use of touch. This was then repeated with the arms crossed. The EEG (electroencephalography) measured the electrical brain responses of the subjects and showed that pain was weaker during arm crossing. The subjects also rated the pain as weaker.
“This means that the areas of the brain that contain the map of the right body and the map of right external space are usually activated together, leading to highly effective processing of sensory stimuli. When you cross your arms these maps are not activated together anymore, leading to less effective brain processing of sensory stimuli, including pain, being perceived as weaker.”
Does this provide a neurological source for arm crossing body language? At this point, one could only speculate, but it is fascinating to measure the effect that a specific body position has on felt pain. Perhaps when people cross their arms, they are trying to reduce the amount of pain they are experiencing from the outside world and crossing the body off reduces that sensation.