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The simple trick that reduces the pain of the vaccine by 40%
Taking young children for the vaccine is always a challenging and unpleasant experience, the next time you need to do it - remember this easy tip that research has shown can significantly reduce the pain of the injection.
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Thursday, 10 December 2020, 07:02
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Stabbing a vaccine is not a pleasant affair, but neither is it terrible.
Mild pain that passes within a few seconds - a necessary and minimal evil that we are willing to go through happily to gain protection from serious and life-threatening illnesses.
This is all true if you are a rational adult.
But for young children, a shot can be a very big deal, as any parent who has ever chased their toddler children fleeing frantically from the nursing room with a drop of milk, surely knows.
But a small study coming from a university in California offers hope - the researchers there found that the facial expression we choose to perform during the vaccination itself can greatly affect the level of pain felt when giving the injection.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine conducted an experiment that included 231 participants and found that if you smile or grimace while giving the vaccine, the whole experience becomes significantly less painful.
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To the full article
The study actually put to the test an old theory called the 'facial feedback hypothesis' which holds that even if you fake a smile it can improve your feeling and even make a negative experience more pleasant.
The explanation underlying this theory is that a smile is an action that is linked in our brain to positive sensations or alternatively, that the muscles involved in the smile action moderate the passage of pain signals through the triangular nerve.
One-tenth of the world's population faces fear of needles.
California girl gets flu shot (Photo: AP)
The researchers in California created an experiment in which they examined the effect of different types of smiles on the vaccine experience.
And they found that an authentic smile - one that reaches to the eyes, they say - can reduce the rate of pain experienced when vaccinated by 39-40 percent.
Every year, 16 billion injections are given worldwide, and it is estimated that about one-tenth of the world's population - that is, 1 in 10 people - face fear of needles.
Therefore, according to the researchers, their findings have significance for a very large public.
And there is no doubt that the current timing, in which the whole world is preparing to launch mass vaccination programs against Corona, is particularly interesting and relevant for these findings.
As you may recall, in the United Kingdom, the national vaccination program has already begun to vaccinate the population against covid-19 and the United States, and we in Israel, too, will catch up very soon.
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The manner in which the experiment was conducted was such that the participants were not aware of the real purpose of the experiment, in order to keep their pain experience as objective as possible.
Participants were told that they were taking part in a multi-tasking experiment.
They were asked to hold a wooden chopstick between their teeth in one of 4 poses, while the researchers presented them with a picture of a person doing the same thing and asked them to mimic his facial expression.
While they were doing this, they also received an injection of saline solution (saline solution) in the arm, similar to a vaccine injection.
Even under the mask - try to smile, it will hurt less.
Anar Otolangi, participates in an experiment to test the Israeli vaccine against corona, receives the first dose (Photo: Yonatan Zindel, Flash 90)
The expressions that the participants were asked to emulate were: a natural facial expression, a normal smile that activates the cheek muscles, a large and authentic smile - in which the eye muscles also take part, and a fourth movement which is a kind of facial spasm in which the forehead muscles are also active.
At the time of injection, the researchers monitored the pulse and level of skin conductivity of the participants - both measures of stress.
In addition, each participant gave investigators a report on the level of pain they expected before the injection and the level of pain they actually felt as well as their mental state at the time of the injection.
Smile with your eyes too
The researchers' findings showed that those who were asked to smile a large and authentic smile and those who grimaced (the fourth pose) expected at least pain on injection and also reported lower-grade pain than participants who were asked to remain in natural expression.
Participants who smiled a normal smile, with only the cheek muscles, also reported an improvement in pain sensation, albeit at a slightly lower rate.
Participants who smiled the wide smile that included activating the eye muscles (also known as 'Duchenne Smile') reported 40% less pain at the time of the stabbing, and participants who grimaced reported 39% less pain.
This is a significant decrease in pain levels, according to the researchers.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research experiment to demonstrate that such a natural response to pain can help improve the subjective way in which patients experience pain," the researchers wrote in a summary of their findings.
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