Comedy is an anaesthetic

Listening to Billy Connolly raises your pain threshold, new research has found.

Scientists at Glasgow Caledonian University have been studying the effect of the Big Yin's routines on patients during experiments to find alternatives to anaesthetics.

And they discovered that listening to his stand-up can increase people's pain tolerance three-fold.

The theory was tested by seeing how long the human guinea pigs would keep their hands in uncomfortably cold water while listening to music, Connolly's comedy and doing mental arithmetic.

Music was found to be the best analgesia, and could lead to patients being allowed to listen to their own music to make hospital stays easier, the Sunday Times' Scottish edition reports.

Published: 6 Apr 2003