Re:Study in mice explains how brain can turn pain signals up...
by ben_w on Wednesday October 16, 2019 @07:26AM
(#21269184)
I have another anecdote about pain. A few years ago, cycling at night on the then-under-construction path by the Cambridge Guided Busway, I bounced off an invisible kerb and noticed the “pain” from the fall before I hit the ground, when I was still at a ~45 degree angle; yet when I then picked myself up and cycled on to the cinema I felt no pain — even though, when I checked myself at the end of the film (one of the Hobbit films), I found I’d been bleeding enough to make quite a mess.
Re:Study in mice explains how brain can turn pain signals up...
by mikk14 on Wednesday October 16, 2019 @09:06AM
(#21269895)
It is pretty common under situation of physical effort not to feel pain, which makes some sort of evolutionary sense.
Another anecdote: during last year's Tour de France, halfway climbing the Alpe d'Huez (~13.8km at avg 8% slope, nothing to scoff at), Vincenzo Nibali got knocked off his bike because it got hooked on a supporter's camera strap. He got back on his bike and completed the rest of the climb faster than the top contenders in front of him. When the doctors checked him, it turned out he had a fractured vertebra. I suppose that must've hurt.
Interesting. A couple of days ago I was washing dishes and the water was too hot, so I almost burnt my hand--or so I thought--by putting it directly under the faucet by accident. Nonetheless, I started playing with it for a while: how long could I keep it there? I realized that if I put my hand under it, whenever I gave in to fear, the pain got unbearable, as if a switch had been turned on.
I think that's why expert meditators can handle pain better. Also, meditation and yoga reduce the right amygdala's volume [0], which processes fear and negative emotions.
[0] https://www.psypost.org/2019/08/meditation-and-yoga-practice....