Why does plucking an eyebrow hair hurt so much less than plucking a nose hair? Or stubbing a toe, getting a paper cut, etc.
There’s also different kinds of pain, how does the body differentiate between the injuries and how does it calculate how painful it should feel?
In: Biology
It all has to do with the nervous system and nerve endings. The nerve endings on your face are far less concentrated than the ones in your nasal cavity and are also constantly exposed to external stimuli (making them more resilient). Pain is your brain interpreting signals received by nerve endings in and on your body so it makes sense that nerves constantly exposed to external stimulus would have a lower pain response as they’ve become “numb” to the stimuli or have died completely.
The skin also creates its own protective barriers. A perfect example would be calluses. I play guitar daily and have thick calluses on my fingers. The nerve endings in my fingers are still intact, but the “armor” on my fingertips allows me to touch very hot or cold items for a longer period of time than my wife or children could.
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