Tickle Me Pink: 12 Fun Facts About Tickling
Can you really be tickled to death? Who likes being tickled more — men or women? Where are people most ticklish? Here's everything you never knew about these teasing touches.
They say laughter is the best medicine. Unless, that is, you feel like you’re being tickled to death — or at least to the point where you're about to wet your pants. Yet tickling isn't always a negative experience. Consider parents who tickle their newborns to elicit sweet baby giggles or lovers who tickle for flirting and foreplay. Some people even make appointments to be tickled, at the CosquilleArte Spa in Madrid — the world’s first tickle spa, where therapists use their fingertips and soft feathers to soothe their clients into relaxation.
Whether tickling makes you giggle or cringe, we dare you to read the following fascinating facts about tickling without cracking a smile — or feeling a little tingly.
Your Body During a Tickle Session
So what exactly happens when you’re tickled? In simplest terms, nerve endings in your skin send messages to your brain, eventually reaching the cerebellum, the area that regulates initiation of movement. “The cerebellum is activated upon unexpected touch,” says Samuel S. H. Wang, PhD, associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J., and co-author of Welcome to Your Brain. As a result of this sudden touch, your body produces a tickling sensation.
Tickling Helps Us Bond
Tickling not only triggers laughter, it also builds relationships. In fact, evolution expert Charles Darwin noted in the late 19th century that tickling is a mechanism of social bonding. When a mother tickles her infant, for instance, the baby laughs, and the mother tickles more, which serves as a form of communication between infant and parent.
“Tickle battles are give-and-take episodes that may be the basis of social play,” says Robert R. Provine, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore and the author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.
Tickling Is Your Body's Alarm System
Tickling may also have another important evolutionary function: “Like itching, tickling may protect us by drawing attention to external stimuli, like predators or parasites,” Provine says. This type of tickle, called knismesis, rarely produces laughter and is a reaction that humans and animals share, says Christine R. Harris, PhD, associate professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. Think of a horse flipping its tail in response to a pesky fly.
You Can't Tickle Yourself
Why not? Essentially, you can’t surprise your own brain. “Somewhere in your brain, a prediction is made about the sensation your hand will produce, and that prediction suppresses the tickling response,” Dr. Wang explains.
Tickle Spots Are Universal
Where should you launch your next tickle attack? Your best bet is on the sides of the torso (from the armpits to the waist) and soles of the feet. Research on college students reported in the American Scientist found that these were the most ticklish spots. “Vulnerable areas of the body are usually the most ticklish,” Dr. Provine says, adding that other ticklish spots include external ear openings, genital regions, and breasts.
Tickling Can Be Torturous
If you hate being tickled, feel lucky that you weren’t around when tickling was used for corporal punishment. During the 16th century, a Protestant sect would tickle transgressors to death. Ancient Romans provided punishment through tickling too: They tied offenders down, soaked their feet in salt, and had goats lick it off.
Tickling Equals Flirting
From adolescence on, you’re roughly seven times more likely to be tickled by somebody of the opposite sex, according to Provine. His studies have found that the most common reason to tickle is to show affection.
You Get Tickled Less As You Age
Is tickling really just child’s play? People under age 40 are 10 times more likely to report having been tickled in the past week than people over age 40, according to Provine. One obvious explanation is that there’s simply decreased opportunity for tickling with age, as kids get older, for example. Hormonal changes may also decrease the tickle response as you age, which could make you like being tickled less.
You Can Block a Tickle Advance
How? Just place your hand on the tickler’s hand. It’s a trick doctors know well. “When doctors want to examine your belly, they’ll often ask you to place your hand on theirs,” Dr. Wang says. In doing so, you generate the same motion as the doctor, which tricks your brain into thinking that you’re the one doing the tickling.
The trouble is that catching the tickler’s hand during a surprise ambush can be tough.
Tickling Can Slim
It’s no joke: Tickling makes you laugh, which burns calories. A study in the International Journal of Obesity found that 10 to 15 minutes of laughing burns 10 to 40 extra calories a day — which could add up to one to four pounds in a year.
Granted, tickling doesn't burn as many calories as hitting the gym for 45 minutes, but “every calorie counts,” says Macej Buchowski, PhD, the lead study author and a research professor of medicine and pediatrics and director of the Energy Balance Laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
Tickle Me Elmo Rocked for a Reason
There’s a good explanation for why this hot-ticket toy was impossible to get when it launched during the 1996 holiday shopping season. According to Time magazine, even after one million units were shipped, stores sold out within minutes — and buyers started reselling the $29 doll for up to $2,000!
So what makes this toy — and its subsequent Cookie Monster, Ernie, and Big Bird iterations — a perennial favorite? Simple: It laughs and wriggles back. “You could take any doll and tickle it, but because it doesn’t respond, it doesn’t interest you,” says Provine. An important element of tickling is reciprocity. If the ticklee doesn’t react, then tickling is no fun.
Men Like Being Tickled More
In one of Provine’s surveys, tickling was slightly less pleasant to women than it was to men, and almost twice as many women as men ranked tickling as “very unpleasant.” This may be due to bad experiences related to non-consensual or non-reciprocal sexual touching, Provine says.
That Ticklish Feeling Can Be Fickle
Scientists don’t know why some people seem more ticklish than others. Provine says that the pleasure of the tickling experience is directly related to the relationship of the tickler and ticklee, which is why you might have more of a reaction in certain circumstances. A lover's ticklish touch might be pleasurable while an older brother's could feel like torture.
