See beautiful paintings to relieve pain

Seeing a masterpiece of art not only helps us raise the soul. According to psychologists, this also helps to ease physical pain.

Experts at Bari University (Italy) conducted an experiment for 12 volunteers (both male and female). They asked the volunteer team to see 300 paintings and then picked the 20 most beautiful and the 20 worst pictures.

Later, these people were seen one of three things: beautiful pictures, white fonts or bad pictures. While the volunteers watched the paintings, scientists fired a short laser into each person's hands. These lasers are intense enough to cause discomfort, but not physical harm. The electrodes on the volunteer head monitor the brain's response to the impact of the laser pulse.

The results showed that the brain activity of the group saw bad pictures or white fonts increased three times compared to the group that looked at beautiful pictures.

Picture 1 of See beautiful paintings to relieve pain

A watch group of Birth of Venus, masterpiece of the Botticelli artist.Photo: dailymail.co.uk.


According to Dr. Marina de Tommaso, the lead researcher, the beautiful image causes the human brain to reduce attention to pain. Beautiful paintings reduce pain because they increase the level of dispersal of the brain much more than bad pictures.

A previous study demonstrated that beautiful images produce reactions in an area on the cortex called orbitofrontal cortex. Many other tests also demonstrate that the brain works more effectively when the eyes see beautiful images.

Dr. Marina said that the research results are very meaningful for hospitals. According to her, in hospital treatment rooms, especially operating rooms, doctors should hang beautiful pictures in places where patients can see them to reduce their focus on injections and incisions. of knives, scissors.