Tickling is the most unpleasant phenomenon that causes contagious laughter and irritability. It involves physical pressure using your fingertips or a gentle feather on sensitive areas of the body: heels, neck, wrists, stomach and armpits.
Only those people who have weak nerve endings can enjoy it. In other cases, they lose control of their emotions and wonder how to concentrate in such situations and how to stop being afraid of tickling? There are several effective exercises that will help you pull yourself together.
Dangerous moment
Tickle torture has existed since ancient times. Only the bravest person could withstand it. In total, several dangers can be identified that arise due to its effect on a certain area of the body:
- Slight dizziness appears.
- Uncontrolled urination may occur.
- The sensitivity of some points becomes aggravated, which is why pain then appears.
- Hiccups begin.
- Salivation increases.
- If you act on the same area for a long time, spasms and severe suffocation may occur, and you may even die from tickling.
What can you do to avoid these negative aspects? You need to figure out how to stop being afraid of tickling.
Why are some people not afraid of tickling?
I think it's all about the level of sensitivity. Just like in the case of pain. Everyone has their own pain threshold, especially since it is different for men and women. The latter are more sensitive, so it is easy to make them laugh with tickling, and not only that. Besides, men are simply better at restraining themselves.
It is not appropriate for a stern man to show pain or fear, especially if it is fear of such inherently harmless tickling.
As for me, of course, I feel touches on my body during tickling, but nothing more. I always notice that I'm about to be tickled before the tickling actually begins. Perhaps the brain, understanding this, adjusts itself in a certain way and groups the body so as not to experience any fear of this seemingly innocent prank.
For this very reason, we are not afraid of tickling when we try to tickle ourselves. British scientists confirm the fact that the human brain differentiates expected and unexpected touches, thereby suppressing the reaction to independent tickling. By the way, some people still manage to tickle themselves, but they are diagnosed with schizophrenia.
How to tickle a person who is not ticklish?
To the question of how to tickle a person who is not ticklish, I have several answer options. Option one is silent: you tickle him as much as you want, but this will make him neither hot nor cold.
Option two: try tickling him suddenly, on the sly, so to speak. You can also ask a person from whom the victim definitely does not expect tickling to do this.
Option three: tickle such a person in the most “ticklish” places. There is an opinion that such places are those that were most vulnerable in battle: these are the feet (also the “Achilles heel”) and the armpits (the vein and artery in this place lead directly to the heart). They are followed by the neck and chest.
What will happen to a person if you tickle him for a long time?
So without thinking twice, I got straight to the point. I decided to tickle my friend to death, otherwise she got off on the wrong foot again today. And he tickled her for a long time, without stopping and not paying attention to her “That’s enough!” So she immediately chuckled, and then she started crying, I was really scared. I had to interrupt the experiment and turn to theory. It turned out that tickling is an unconscious protective reaction of our body, which was inherited by us in the process of Darwinian evolution from our smaller brothers and served as a clear way for them to detect the presence of “strangers” (unsafe insects) on their skin.
Therefore, our brain still perceives tickling as a signal of a potential threat. So why do we neigh like horses when they tickle us?
All the same scientists have found that laughter when tickled has nothing to do with fun, it is just the body’s reaction to excessive nervous tension. And the father of the so-called associative psychology, David Hartley, generally calls laughter from tickling interrupted by “incipient crying.” It turns out that the phrases “to be afraid of tickling” and “to tickle one’s nerves” are quite justified. Now I know, both in practice and in theory, what will happen to a person if you tickle him for a long time - he will definitely cry and fall into hysterics. But what would happen if I continued the tickle torture?
tickle torture
In the history of mankind, there were still precedents for the use of tickling as bodily torture. Even in ancient Rome, feet were dipped in a salty solution, and then they were given to goats to lick it off. Yes, very perverted torture. Rumor has it that the Nazis also did not neglect tickling with goose feathers as corporal punishment. History is silent about whether there were deaths among those who experienced tickle torture.
Consequences of tickling
When I turned to my doctor friend with the question of whether it is possible to die from tickling? He answered that from tickling itself - no, but from its consequences, which are sometimes difficult to foresee - hypothetically, yes, although in fact such cases have not been recorded.
The consequences of tickling can be very different: both positive (remember how children love tickling or the sensation of being touched by a loved one) and negative. Nowadays there is even such a direction as tickle therapy. We get pleasure from tickling because in the body in stressful situations (and tickling is precisely that) there is a surge of adrenaline - a hormone responsible for the instinct of self-preservation. As a result of such overexcitation, vasoconstriction occurs and, accordingly, pressure increases.
The human body, especially susceptible to prolonged tickling, is greatly overexerted in attempts to get rid of the external stimulus, and each subsequent, even very light touch is accompanied by a fit of uncontrollable laughter and leads to muscle spasms and cramps, often accompanied by pain. The muscles of the respiratory system are also exposed to this effect, and this is already extremely dangerous, especially for people with problems with the heart or respiratory system.
Method one – complete “switching”
The first thing a person who is being “tickled” needs is to relax as much as possible. It is recommended to do breathing exercises - take a smooth deep breath and exhale the same way. During it, you need to try to switch from this situation to any other: think about existing problems, reflect on philosophical topics, mentally imagine any phenomenon, for example, the sun rising, waves splashing or water flowing from a tap. This cunning method will allow a person to concentrate on his thoughts, this will reduce the sensitivity of nerve endings.
Cry
The practical benefits of tears are well known to physiologists and ophthalmologists. They moisten the cornea of our eye and thereby protect it from foreign objects (for example, from an eyelash falling into the eye), as well as from drying out, infections, and caustic volatile substances. And thus improve the quality of vision. For example, if a speck or eyelash gets into the eye, the tears will wash it away.
Cry, girl! What are the benefits of tear therapy? More details
All land animals have lacrimal glands, which constantly produce a fluid of complex composition. By the way, the chemical compositions of blood and tear fluid are close. Roughly speaking, it is a derivative of blood and also contains several types of salts. And the most useful substance found in our tears is lysozyme. It can kill many microbes and provide disinfection of the eye membranes.
However, why do people cry when they have a strong emotional reaction - grief, fear, compassion, as well as great joy? Scientists are still arguing about the reasons. There are two versions here, and perhaps both are correct. Firstly, crying gives a signal to other people that you feel bad and need help or sympathy. Because Homo sapiens are more socially connected than anyone else in the animal kingdom, empathy and compassion are very important from an evolutionary perspective. Neuroscientists conducted an experiment: they asked photographs to determine the degree of sadness of crying people, while in some photographs the tears were removed using Photoshop. People who had tears removed from their faces seemed less sad to the subjects.
The second hypothesis: tears help the crying person cope with emotional stress and alleviate grief. After all, stress hormones leave the body along with them. Therefore, after crying, we feel relieved.
“Male and female are different.” Neuroscientist on the secrets of the human brain Read more
Method three - transformation
Most often, a person, in order to mock another person, begins to tickle his heels. They are considered the most sensitive area. During such a period, a person develops a feeling of mild and incomprehensible fear, which he cannot cope with on his own. At this moment, you should mentally make a transformation of emotions, for example, transform them into a feeling of aggression. Anger will allow you to overcome yourself and reduce the sensitivity of nerve endings.
Hiccups
Our main breathing muscle is called the diaphragm. Hiccups arise from the fact that spasms appear in it and, with sudden contractions, strong convulsive breaths occur. This is the mechanism, but the cause of hiccups is not completely clear.
“One version is a pinched vagus nerve. It passes from the chest to the abdominal cavity, closely adjacent to the esophagus. When we eat hastily, quickly filling the stomach, the vagus nerve is pressed and irritated, says physiologist, candidate of medical sciences Nina Alekseeva. - The same effect is possible if we take a sharp breath from cold or fear. The body reacts quickly to compression of the nerve: it gives a signal to the central nervous system, and it begins to contract the diaphragm in order to free the vagus nerve, on which the functioning of many of our organs depends. That is, hiccups are such a defense mechanism.”
Hiccups may be a legacy of the very ancient ancestors of humanity, who breathed through gills, some scientists believe. They suggest that there are connections left in the ancient cortex of our brain that are responsible for pushing water out of the gills. An analogy has been noted between hiccups and ventilation in tadpoles.
Method four – “cinema” exercise
The most effective method to overcome your fear of tickling is to mentally transport yourself to a movie theater. A person should imagine that he is sitting alone in a spacious and beautiful hall. There should be a feeling of calm, comfort and security. Some famous black and white film is shown on the big screen. It’s worth trying to imagine all the events that are happening in your head, see the faces of the main characters, and understand their feelings. After just five minutes of such a relaxation session, you will notice that the feeling of fear has completely left you.
The smell of sweat
Each of us has encountered a situation when there is a person nearby whose smell of sweat literally makes us sick. Holding our nose, we think: “How can his loved ones tolerate him? Although what kind of loved ones... Who would live with such a stinker? However, it soon turns out that the person has a spouse, and he (she) does not find this smell unpleasant. How so?
The smell of illness. What does the body smell like with this or that pathology? More details
“A lot of glands that secrete sweat are located in the armpit area. The hair growing there enhances the smell of sweat and concentrates it. This smell has an important biological function. Our ancestors used it to find marriage partners. Nature intended it this way: the more different the genotypes of the parents are, the better for their offspring - they will have a more diverse set of genes, explains Nikolai Zakharov. — Scientists have proven that if a person finds someone else’s smell pleasant, it means that its carrier is suitable for him as a sexual partner according to his genotype. But the repulsive smell says otherwise.”
True, there is an opinion that it is not sweat that a person smells, but the microbes that live in abundance on his body. And sweat, which is almost 100% water, only creates good conditions for their reproduction.
Simple rules
In total, we can highlight a few basic rules on how to stop being afraid of tickling.
- You need to constantly train. For example, ask a friend or relative to periodically tickle themselves in a certain area. You can influence it yourself using a soft object. During this process, you need to practice distraction exercises. This method will help you get used to this state and understand which relaxation method will help more.
- You should always perceive tickling as something very pleasant, capable of bringing the most positive emotions. The brain will automatically remember this setting. During exposure to a certain point, it will give appropriate signals.
- Periodically you need to do breathing exercises, it will help you cope with a wide variety of emotions.
There are people who constantly have a panicky fear of tickling. Even in a calm state, they experience severe discomfort. In this case, you need to contact a psychotherapist, he will conduct a course of relaxation therapy that will help you cope with this condition.
What can you die from instantly?
Prolonged tickling can cause a spasm in the lungs, which can cause suffocation, or cardiac arrest, which can cause death instantly. So much for “tickle to death.” Now I'm ticklish too, even when I'm not ticklish, and it's not even funny.
How to tickle a person correctly?
As scientists already familiar to us say, there are two types of tickling: knismesis (light touches) and gargalesis (rough impact on places on the human body that are vulnerable to tickling). Hmm, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for me too! So, unstoppable neighing, involuntary convulsive contraction of the muscles and diaphragm occur only with gargalesis, so if you are faced with the question of how to properly tickle a person so as not to harm him, tickle him very gently and not for very long.
However, don’t overdo it too much with tenderness, because there is also such a fetish as knismolagnia - sexual arousal from tickling.
By the way, the notorious scientists have found a tickling center in the brain of experimental rats, and apes even laugh when they are tickled. Now watch the tickling video and please don't die laughing!
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Text - Agent Q.
Is tickling dangerous for humans?
The unpleasant sensations that a person experiences from such an effect are of an irritable nature. This condition affects the psycho-emotional state of a person. Many people have tried to tickle their loved ones for fun, or have been the victim themselves at one time or another. From a light touch of fingers or an ordinary feather, the nervous system is excited, tension is felt in the muscles, a smile appears on the face, and it becomes funny. Such signs are a protective reaction of the body.
The manifestations of the tickle reflex depend on the health and strength of the nervous system. Psychologists are sure that a person’s mood, his mood, and the ability to switch his own attention to other things are also important.
Cause of Tickle Phobia
Everything is not as simple as it may seem. The fact is that getting rid of fear is not so easy. People with weak nerves can get rid of the fear of tickling through the systematic use of several exercises. And those for whom the mere thought of such a phenomenon causes horror will have to struggle with psychological disorder.
This disease is called pteronophobia.
Its manifestation can affect a person’s mental, physical and behavioral state. It should be dealt with psychologically, and sometimes even with medication.
Tickling can be harmful
Kinesthetic learners who are afraid of tickling are potential jealous people
However, let us return to the relationship between the fear of tickling and feelings such as jealousy. Psychologists believe that, depending on the way they perceive the world around them, all people are divided into three types:
- visuals;
- auditory learners;
- kinesthetics.
The first perceive the world primarily through their eyes, visually. The second - with the ears, auditorily. Still others are tactile. Kinesthetic people love the comfort around them and find it difficult to withstand any stress or discomfort. The algorithm for the emergence of jealousy is as follows: a person sees his “soul mate” and immediately imagines a husband or wife hugging their lover or mistress. It's good if it's just a fantasy. But if the suspicions are justified, negative kinesthetics intensify a hundredfold. The mechanism of tickling is very similar: tangible, and most importantly, sudden irritation from the outside, avoidance of this process by those who are tickled.
That is why we can draw a reasoned conclusion: the sign about the connection between the fear of tickling and jealousy is true only when a person kinesthetic in the way he perceives the world around him .
