Video Games Can Help You Cope With Pain Even During Childbirth.
Pain relief is not just a physical thing; distracting yourself can help you get through painful experiences. We have already seen that children who watch cartoons do not experience such pain when they are given an injection . It turns out that playing the game is even better than watching videos passively.
In a study published in the journal Pain Research and Management , people were asked to keep their hands in ice water while watching Dragonball Z or a Wii bubble popping game . They rated their pain as less and their pleasure more from playing the game than from just watching the cartoon.
I had the chance to try this idea out recently when I was giving birth to a baby. Traditional non-medical methods of pain relief during labor include breathing exercises and massage , none of which have ever worked for me. But while I was working in the early stages of labor, I took out my phone whenever I felt a contraction and played several moves in dots or juice cubes .
Surprisingly, it worked. The games were simple enough for me to deal with the pain, and fun enough to occupy a small part of my brain that would otherwise think “oh oh oh.” There always comes a moment in childbirth when nothing helps, but for about a couple of hours, games were just a godsend.
Electronic games as a distraction of pain | Research and treatment of pain
Photo by R. Pollard .
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