Clutching an injury does make it feel better, according to a study published in Current Biology, reducing the pain on average 64 percent. But only if the injured party is the one doing the clutching (insert your own self-touching joke here). It doesn't work if someone else does it. Study coauthor Marjolein Kammers explained to the Daily Mail what this means:
"Pain isn't just the signals coming from the body to the brain, but it is also the way the brain processes those signals,'' she said.
