THIS is why your hands hurt more than other areas of your body!
So I was watching one of my most recent binges on Netflix - Killing Eve (such a good show if you’re into…well…badass female assassins and Russian / British intelligence drama).
In one of the episodes, the character who plays Eve (Sandra Oh - AKA ‘Yang’ from Grey’s Anatomy) shoots someone in the hand, on purpose.
Ohhhh. She cold. Lol.
And I said to my partner, oh man HIS HAND?!?!?! She shot him in HIS HAND?? This guy’s going to need like 6 months of hand therapy to get his fingers right again!
I was bummed because I knew the show wouldn’t accurately depict his recovery.
And I was completely correct - it didn’t. I’m pretty sure he had a bandage over his hand for the rest of the season, but like…his hand worked just fine without therapy. Which is completely unreal if you’ve just been shot in the hand.
ANYWAY.
He said something to Eve (the main character who shot him in the hand) later on in the season.
It was the first time he was seeing her since she had shot him, and he asked her something along the lines of,
“But why did you have to shoot me in the HAND???? That is a really really painful place to get shot.”
And he is ON POINT.
And this is what I want to talk to you about today:
🖐 HAND PAIN NEUROSCIENCE 101 🖐
The reason it hurts sooooo bad to get shot in the hand is because our hands have a much higher density of nerve endings, meaning these nerve endings are closer together than, let's say, the nerve endings on your back.
Think about it.
We need our hands to have a much higher level of precision than, for example, our back as we are feeling the objects we are engaging with.
If you were to close your eyes, lay your hands palm-up, and ask your best friend to poke you with a pencil anywhere on one of your hands, you’d probably be able to pinpoint the exact location of the poke.
However, if you laid on your stomach, lifted up your shirt, and asked the same friend to poke you anywhere on your back using the same exact pencil, I’m willing to bet you couldn’t be as precise. You may know the general area, but not the exact precise location as you did with the poke on your hands.
This is because we NEED to be able to feel more with our hands, as they do so many more intricate things for us than our backs.
Sooooo interesting, right???
You can apply this concept to the reason why, when your hands are aching, you FEEL it more than perhaps other areas. It’s that nagging and specific sensation of pain in your hands, rather than that generalized, widespread pain that is more characteristic of back pain.
ANOTHER reason why you can feel more pain in your hands (and why this character was so bothered that Eve chose to shoot his hand, of all body parts) is because of the amount of brain space your hands take up in your brain.
Your hands take up a DISPROPORTIONATE AMOUNT of space in your brain compared to their actual size.
If you google ‘Homunculus’ you will find a really weird looking man. But please, humor me (& yourself quite honestly), and do have a look!
The homunculus is a 3-D representation of what a human body would look like if each body part grew in proportion to the area of the cortex of the brain concerned with either 1) directing movements (the ‘motor homunculus’) or 2) feeling sensations (the ‘sensory homunculus’).
You’ll find each homunculus has large lips, a big tongue, and… you guessed it…massive hands!!
MEANING… the amount of brainspace our hands take up is wildly disproportionate to their actual size. We need way more brain power/connections to both move our hands AND to feel what we need to feel with our hands.
And because our brains have such a large space dedicated to our hands, well, it means we sure do feel them more when they are hurting!!
Make sure you've tuned into my most popular (& free) masterclass, How to Decrease Your Hand Pain Without Surgery, Excessive Therapy, or the Dreaded Metal Bar Brace. You'll learn instant tips for decreasing your hand pain that you can start doing today! 💛