When we get hurt why is our reaction to touch/grab the area that hurts?
In: Other
In addition to things other people have said about why it’s a reflex, applying mild pressure over the area can actually lessen the pain. This is because the nerves that detect the pain in your skin can actually interfere with the nerves next to them. This helps them tell you exactly where an injury is. If 3 nerves cover the area that is injured, but the impact was right in the middle causing it send a slightly stronger pain signal than the other 2, it dampens the signal coming from the other 2 to increase the difference in signal and allow the brain to more easily pinpoint where the strongest signal is coming from. Applying pressure over a larger area (like putting your whole hand over where a bee has stung you) can cause this interference so that the nerves at the site of the impact don’t send quite so strong a signal.
Please forgive me if that’s hard to follow – I took physiology 5 years ago and it’s much simpler with diagrams!
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