Love Can Ease Your Pain, Study Finds

NEW YORK CITY, NY — In art, a lover's touch can have magical properties, like when Sleeping Beauty or Snow White's prince wakes the princess with a simple kiss.

But despite the seeming magic of these tales, the principle has a strong basis in science. Psychological research has long shown the important emotional and physiological effects physical contact between humans can have, and a new study suggests it may even act as a pain reliever.

Pavel Goldstein, a pain researcher at the University of Colorado at Boulder, was inspired to research the subject after his wife gave birth.

"My wife was in pain, and all I could think was, 'What can I do to help her?' I reached for her hand and it seemed to help," he recalls. "I wanted to test it out in the lab: Can one really decrease pain with touch, and if so, how?"

In a study with 22 long-term heterosexual couples published in the journal Scientific Reports, Goldstein investigated the physiological effects of a partner's touch. The women were induced to have a mildly painful experience of heat on their forearms in three different conditions: first, sitting with her partner and holding hands; second, sitting with her partner and not touching; and third, sitting in a different room away from her partner.

When the couples were sitting near each other, their breath and heart rates synchronized. This is a well-known phenomenon; humans often unintentionally match their physical and physiological movements when they're paired up.

But when the woman experienced the mildly painful heat, her breath and heart rate quickly fell out of sync with her partner — that is, unless the couple was touching. When the couples held hands, their breathing and heart rates came closer into synchronization, and the woman reported that her pain decreased.

"It appears that pain totally interrupts this interpersonal synchronization between couples," Goldstein said. "Touch brings it back."

He adds: "It could be that touch is a tool for communicating empathy, resulting in an analgesic, or pain-killing, effect."

Other research has show the importance of touch in all sorts of human relationships. Students who received a gentle touch on the arm or back have been found to be more likely to volunteer in class, and doctors who sympathetically place a hand on a patient left them more satisfied with the visit, according to the New York Times.

Goldstein hoped the new research could help inform the practice of pain management in health care settings. At the very least, it should encourage the romantic partners to join their spouses in the delivery room to lend a helping hand.

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