For example, I cut my arm and I immediately feel pain. Pain is there to notify me that something is wrong or that I’m injured, but now that I’m aware and that I’ve taken care of it (say poured some disinfecant and wrapped it up) why do I still feel that pain. Why can’t our brain know that the wound is not dangerous anymore?
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Natural selection doesn’t care about suffering, only passing on of genes, and what we have at the moment is good enough for that.
Pain fibres respond to tissue damage. Even when you’ve addressed the problem, that doesn’t mean the tissue damage has fully healed. That takes time and generally once it’s fully healed, the pain goes away. For the moment I’m ignoring things like neuropathic pain that can persist after healing.
Mechanistically, it’s much simpler for the body to simply respond to tissue damage than to have some mechanism to shut off pain signals after you’ve dealt with it. What if that system malfunctions and you don’t feel pain at all? We know that people with congential insensitivity to pain are much more prone to injuries. Also, for most of human history, we didn’t have the ability to deal with injuries well. We could bandage them, but that’s about it. We didn’t have disinfectant or antibiotics, or effective ways to suture wounds, or most other things we use today. If there was pain, it’s likely there was a problem that could still hurt you.
You absolutely can block out pain. First, decide that it isn’t worth thinking about. Then, ignore it. Easiest way is to focus your mind on other things. Eventually you’ll just stop feeling the pain altogether.
You absolutely can block out pain. First, decide that it isn’t worth thinking about. Then, ignore it. Easiest way is to focus your mind on other things. Eventually you’ll just stop feeling the pain altogether.
You absolutely can block out pain. First, decide that it isn’t worth thinking about. Then, ignore it. Easiest way is to focus your mind on other things. Eventually you’ll just stop feeling the pain altogether.
Look up something called the smoke alarm principle by anthropologist Randolph Nesse. Essentially, our body overreacts to certain things (pain when nothing is imminently dangerous, vomiting when what we consumed isn’t actually poisonous, etc.) because the cost of underestimating something serious is much greater than the cost of the overreaction.
Akin to a smoke alarm, as the name suggests. Meant to warn you of a fire in the most dangerous sense, it also goes off just by slightly burning toast. This burnt toast won’t kill you or destroy the house, but the alarm detected some smoke and that’s all that matters. Better to overreact than underreact.
Look up something called the smoke alarm principle by anthropologist Randolph Nesse. Essentially, our body overreacts to certain things (pain when nothing is imminently dangerous, vomiting when what we consumed isn’t actually poisonous, etc.) because the cost of underestimating something serious is much greater than the cost of the overreaction.
Akin to a smoke alarm, as the name suggests. Meant to warn you of a fire in the most dangerous sense, it also goes off just by slightly burning toast. This burnt toast won’t kill you or destroy the house, but the alarm detected some smoke and that’s all that matters. Better to overreact than underreact.
Look up something called the smoke alarm principle by anthropologist Randolph Nesse. Essentially, our body overreacts to certain things (pain when nothing is imminently dangerous, vomiting when what we consumed isn’t actually poisonous, etc.) because the cost of underestimating something serious is much greater than the cost of the overreaction.
Akin to a smoke alarm, as the name suggests. Meant to warn you of a fire in the most dangerous sense, it also goes off just by slightly burning toast. This burnt toast won’t kill you or destroy the house, but the alarm detected some smoke and that’s all that matters. Better to overreact than underreact.
Hi!
I’m going to disagree with the “can;t block out pain”.
People have many successful strategies for pain management.
Some people are really good at ignoring minor pain. Other people are really bad at ignoring pain.
Each side of this spectrum has benefits and drawbacks.
My friend with Diabetic neuropathy often damages his feet because he does not give them proper care when they are hurt.
Others are super sensitive, so they never get sunburn, but always cover up.
In basic training(40 years ago), I could go a long way past what was good for me. I thought it was “cool to be tough” but my body tells me that some of those things were dumb.
Now real / serious damage is different because it usually screams louder than we can ignore.
It mostly signals “get somewhere safe to rest and heal”
Hi!
I’m going to disagree with the “can;t block out pain”.
People have many successful strategies for pain management.
Some people are really good at ignoring minor pain. Other people are really bad at ignoring pain.
Each side of this spectrum has benefits and drawbacks.
My friend with Diabetic neuropathy often damages his feet because he does not give them proper care when they are hurt.
Others are super sensitive, so they never get sunburn, but always cover up.
In basic training(40 years ago), I could go a long way past what was good for me. I thought it was “cool to be tough” but my body tells me that some of those things were dumb.
Now real / serious damage is different because it usually screams louder than we can ignore.
It mostly signals “get somewhere safe to rest and heal”
Hi!
I’m going to disagree with the “can;t block out pain”.
People have many successful strategies for pain management.
Some people are really good at ignoring minor pain. Other people are really bad at ignoring pain.
Each side of this spectrum has benefits and drawbacks.
My friend with Diabetic neuropathy often damages his feet because he does not give them proper care when they are hurt.
Others are super sensitive, so they never get sunburn, but always cover up.
In basic training(40 years ago), I could go a long way past what was good for me. I thought it was “cool to be tough” but my body tells me that some of those things were dumb.
Now real / serious damage is different because it usually screams louder than we can ignore.
It mostly signals “get somewhere safe to rest and heal”
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