Are you afraid of needles? Scientist believes he found way to reduce injection pain

Dr Gustavo Reyes del Paso claims holding your breath can make injection pain more tolerable.

A lot of people, the young and old alike, are really frightened of getting injections, even just the thought of it. The good news is that scientists have discovered a simple answer.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - Spanish scientists believe that holding your breath is key to making the pain of the needle, tolerable. It turns out that sharp intake of air signals the brain to moisten the nervous system and it leads to the person becoming less sensitive to pain.

A doctor from the University of Jaen, Spain named Gustavo Reyes del Paso, particularly wanted to know if holding one's breath can make someone more tolerant to pain, as holding one's breath is also a natural way of raising blood pressure.

During his experiment, he pinched the fingernails of his 38 volunteers for five seconds while they held their breath. Dr. Gustavo repeated the test while the subjects breathed slowly.

He discovered that both techniques were effective when it comes to distracting the volunteers from the pain. But the individuals reported that they experienced less pain when they held their breath.

Dr Reyes del Paso assumes that holding one's breath can be a natural response for a person is expecting to feel pain.

However, some critics claim that holding one's breath can make an individual's muscles tense and worsen the situation. Others state that the reduced pain is not significant enough to be of clinical use.

Dr Reyes del Paso explains that for it to work, the individual has to hold his or her breath before the pain kicks in, which is why it works for people anticipating the sting of an injection.

The findings were published in the journal called Pain Medicine.

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