Why do we feel pain?

Here are some questions that you may ask when you experience pain:

    Þ            Why do people feel physical pain?

     Þ            How does it even work?

     Þ            Does everybody feel pain the same way?

 As much as we hate the feeling of pain, it actually does play an important role in our lives.

 
Without it, we would not be able to sense an injury, and we would be in danger of harming ourselves even further.

Here is a more detailed explanation about pain, why we feel it and why and how our body reacts to it.

 

Pain is an evolved defence mechanism that alerts us to an injury, hence allowing us to protect our bodies and not damage ourselves any further.

 

Anyone who has accidently put their hand on a hot stove knows that the instinct to pull away from the hot stove is as overwhelming as it is quick. This is known as your pain reflex.

Pain comes in all shapes and sizes — and intensities.

 

What are the different forms of pain?

 
The most common form of pain is what's called nociceptive pain. It is typically the result of a physical injury. When you stub your toe, burn yourself or experience a cut, you are activating the nociceptive pain receptors.

Another classification of pain is neuropathic pain. It is caused by damage to any part of the nervous system. It is due to this sort of injury that you experience sensations like tingling, electrical shocks or pins and needles. It is also the same pain you feel when you hit your funny bone.

In addition to these two forms of pain, other forms of pain include psychosomatic pain, breakthrough pain, incident pain, pain asymbolia and insensitivity.

 

How does pain work?

There are essentially four mechanisms that make pain work: Our nerve fibres, pain receptors, the spinal column and the brain.

Our bodies are equipped with different sensory nerve fibres that can respond to different physical stimuli like a person's touch or running water. Depending on the extent of the physical contact, our nerve fibres will produce different chemical responses that will influence how the sensations are interpreted.

When we physically hurt ourselves, we activate nociceptive pain receptors. These nerve fibres' only function is to set the alarm for the pain receptors. The nociceptive pain receptors are engaged, for example, when we accidentally kick a table leg.

Once engaged, the nociceptive pain receptors send impulses through the nerve into the spinal cord. After this, the signals make their way to the brain. This all happens within less than a second. These impulses move through our bodies at a rate of about one meter per second.

"Once the pain signal reaches the brain it heads directly for the thalamus, which in turn dispatches it to other areas for ongoing neurological and conscious interpretation. For example, the cortex is responsible for figuring out where the pain came from, and how it compares to other kinds of pain. The thalamus, in addition to acting as a messenger, also facilitates an emotional response — which can result in anger, frustration — or even crying."

 

How you feel pain can be influenced by a number of circumstances, including mood, fears, expectations, past experiences, etc.

 

For more information, you can check out these websites below:

http://pain.about.com/od/whatischronicpain/a/feeling_pain.htm

 

http://www.thepaincenter.com/why-do-we-feel-pain-and-why-does-our-body-react-to-it.html

 

http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/pain.html

 

 

 

Source: http://io9.com/5946522/why-do-we-experience-physical-pain