LillyRose

Magister Ingeniator ✨ Good Omens, 🖤🤍Doctor Who, 💙💙 CPTSD, Long Covid, 2 CHDs💔 POTS, Gastroparesis 💚 She/They, Over 40 years old

[LillyRose @LillyRoseLRL]

@thsottiaux Treat adults like adults

[Aditya Singh @adityasinghnx]

@anishmoonka Wild part is this is literally nervous-system co‑regulation in real time. When brain waves, heart rate, and breathing sync under pain + touch, you’re basically borrowing another nervous system’s stability as an analgesic.

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

A pain researcher held his wife’s hand during childbirth and watched her pain drop. He spent the next five years figuring out why.

Pavel Goldstein, a researcher at University of Colorado Boulder, ran the study with 22 romantic couples. Both partners wore EEG caps (sensors that read brain waves in real time) while the woman received controlled heat pain on her arm. They tested four setups: sitting together without touching, holding hands without pain, sitting together during pain with no touch, and holding hands during pain.

The brain maps in this image tell the whole story. Each orange line is a verified connection between the two brains firing in sync. No touch, no pain: 12 connections. Holding hands, no pain: 10. Pain but no touch: just 5. Pain actually shreds the natural brain sync between partners. But holding hands during pain: 22 connections, over 4x the no-touch pain condition. The coupling explodes the moment touch and pain combine.

The sync happened on a specific brain wave frequency tied to focused attention and, specifically, to processing someone else’s pain. When both brains locked into this rhythm, two things happened at once: the woman reported less pain, and the man’s empathy accuracy (how well he could estimate her pain level) went up. Higher sync, less pain, better empathy reading. All three moved together.

The why behind it is worth following. When your partner’s brain syncs with yours during pain, it may signal that you’re understood. A 2023 Brain Sciences study found that gentle, caring touch activates a deep brain region that acts as the body’s built-in pain suppression switch, and that region connects directly to neurons that release oxytocin, the bonding hormone. Feeling understood may trigger reward circuits that actively dampen pain.

And it only works with someone you love. A 2024 study from the Chinese Academy of Sciences found the brain sync boost during touch showed up between romantic partners but not between strangers. Same physical contact, different relationship, no coupling spike.

The study is small: 22 couples, all heterosexual, only women received pain, and the team is clear this is correlation, not proven causation. But Goldstein has since confirmed the empathy-touch-pain link across heart rate, breathing, and brain waves in three separate published papers.

The whole line of research started because his wife told him to “shut up and just hold my hand” during labor. Three papers and 250+ citations later, he can show you the wiring diagram of why it worked.

[🌻cassieoh🌳 @cassie_ohpeia]

An old friend comes by for a visit.

#goodomensfanart #aziracrow #ineffablehusbands

[FuckYeahGoodOmens @FYeahGoodOmens]

and Aziraphale's version! ❤

[FuckYeahGoodOmens @FYeahGoodOmens]

whoa!!!😍#GoodOmens

[Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD @Nicole_Lee_Sch]

People have been asking for book recs - I will make a google sheet next week with some recs! This weekend I am resting, spending time in nature, and making crafts. The work to protect human rights never stops - carve out rest when/where you can.

[Nicole Lee Schroeder, PhD @Nicole_Lee_Sch]

It is a really jarring moment to be a historian. To know what might be coming is alarming. To realize that no one around you sees it or acknowledges it is a weird place to be in. Its like time traveling without time traveling. 1/8

[Vivian @suchnerve]

If you’re in the USA and you’ve been delaying an upgrade of your phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, TV, console, or other expensive piece of tech, you should buy it before Jan 20.

The proposed tariff is 60%. That means a flagship smartphone would cost at least $600 more.

[Taniel @Taniel]

If you voted by mail in big chunks of California, in Denver's northern suburbs (Adams/Weld), & in some parts of Arizona, the final breakdown of the U.S. House may come down to whether your ballot encountered any issue — and, if so, whether you can and do 'cure' it.

[Laurie Hardman @LaurieLyricalG]

Dear outside world: please accurately document our history over the next 4 years, because it will not be accurately documented from within.

[Simone Biles @Simone_Biles]

Mr Biden,
I need you to stand up, straighten your back and make some things shake before your departure

xoxo the women in america 💙

[Momentus @BeMomentus]

Keep creating. 🎨
Keep resting. 💤
Keep loving. 💗
Keep reading. 📚
Keep exploring. 🔭
Keep speaking. 🗣️
Keep dancing. 💃
Keep snuggling. 🤗
Keep growing. 🤯
Keep laughing. 🤪
Keep protecting. 🛑

Please, keep going. Together.

[KaRAYgeous TRANTIFA ☽☾🩷💜💙🪻 @kraywhiseheart]

Leopards have already started to eat their faces.

[LillyRose @LillyRoseLRL]

@tabbiewolf I’m so sorry, hugs

[Brooklyn James @brooklyn47361]

@LailaMickelwait “it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them”
The courage and bravery of that …

[Liam O'Brien @VoiceOfOBrien]

If you are turned away at the polls-

your verbatim response is: "Give me a provisional ballot with a receipt as required by law."

Pass it on. #Vote

[Everytown @Everytown]

Voting is your right. Don’t let anyone prevent you from exercising it. Save these Election Protection Hotline numbers in your phone.