why is lying on sand at the beach comfortable, while a few grains of sand in a bed are irritating?
In: Biology
Same reason being in the bathtub is comfortable but being in the rain is annoying. Small bits of sensory things being detected by our body when we don’t want them there are annoying, but there’s a threshold where enough of that sensory information at once becomes familiar and comfortable.
You ever see those toys that you put your hand on a bed of pins and the pins take the shape of your hand, [like this?](https://images.app.goo.gl/2PRvUxN2E5G16ZnV8) Well since you’re pushing down a bunch of pin with no gaps between them, those pins sorta combine to make a smooth surfact. If there were gaps between the pins it would feel significantly less comfortable. Now picture those pins to be grains of sand
Just reading that I can feel how uncomfortable that would be. Like bringing your pillow and blanket to the beach, just doesn’t mix
Smooth texture of the bed sheets means you feel the grains individually as a sharp interruption to the surface you are lying on. Lying on sand it’s all the same each grain becomes part of the overall texture and it moves as you do. Rather than the friction of your skin pressing against the sheet with sand in between.
Lying on sand at the beach is comfortable?
It’s a similar thing to a bed of nails VS. a single nail.
In general, when it comes to small points of pressure, the greater the amount of points there is, the lower the amount of pressure each individual point exerts on your body.
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