Certain itches are bad/unhealthy/dangerous to scratch (chicken pox, eczema, certain bug bites). Why does it feel good to scratch them when doing so has a negative impact on the body and no benefit that I can think of?
In: Biology
Most things that trigger the itch response are things that you want to get off of your skin
Scratching is how you get things off of your skin
This doesn’t work very well when the thing that is triggering the itch response is inside of your skin
The itch is a small pain.
There is a theory called “the gate control theory”.
The idea is that a pain nerves can be interfered with non pain signals like scratching or rubbing.
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