Saturday, 21 March 2015

The Straits Times

This was a report on a study led by Associate Professor Annett Schirmer of the Department of Psychology at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, which found that saying the word “ow” actually helps people to tolerate pain longer. The research was conducted by Ms Genevieve Swee as part of her honours thesis at the Department. The results suggested that making any other sound could also help people cope with pain. The researchers added that more research is needed to find out whether the benefit of saying “ow” extends to people who suffer chronic pain. The findings were published recently in the American Pain Society’s Journal Of Pain.