A recent study has found that crossing the fingers can lead to a reduction in perceived pain, as the brain could rely more on the body’s location in space versus its order on the body to activate sensory nerves.

Crossing the fingers has been shown to reduce the perception of pain.

The reason is that changing the position of the fingers can trick the brain into translating hot, cold, and pain differently than what is actually happening to the hand physically. 

Researchers used a method called thermal grill illusion where the index, middle, and ring fingers are heated, cooled, and heated in that order.

Although the middle finger receives a cooling stimulus, about half of the participants reported feeling pain due to the way the surrounding two hot fingers blocked cooling receptors which then activated the middle finger’s pain receptors. 

When study subjects crossed the middle finger over the index finger, their feelings of pain decreased.