Why Do We Feel Pain And Why Does Our Body React To It?

When you drop something on your foot or slam your finger in a drawer you know that pain will follow. Did you ever wonder why you feel that pain?

Feeling pain, whether acute or chronic pain, in response to an injury is a signal that your body has been damaged in some way. Or if you have a headache or other ache or pain, it’s a signal to your brain that something is wrong. As our bodies evolved pain is a trigger that something is wrong and you need to stop. Imagine if you didn’t know you were injured and kept up with the same activity – think sports injury.

Pain is our body’s “Flight or Fight” signal. When you’ve been injured, that site receives more oxygen and blood flow to the injured site, our heart rate speeds up and we make the decision to run or stay (or open the drawer in which your finger has been slammed).

Why do we feel pain?

Our bodies detect pain in two ways and your spinal cord is the conduit for pain messages:

Fast – through the pain receptors’ motorway. This fast pain is a quick, reactive pain that can cause a sharp, stabbing pain and tells your body to stop or get away from what’s causing it

Slow – through the side streets of pain receptors. This pain is typically a dull, aching throb.

Keep in mind though, that you can have pain that is a melding of the two – stabbing and then a dull throb. In addition to this there is acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain will typically follow the fast pain and could be a cause of a sudden injury or fall (for example) while chronic come with an old injury or arthritis or old age.

How does our brain react to pain?

The way your body reacts to pain, begins in the brain and is a complex, blink-of-an-eye reaction to it. The sense of pain is called nociception and our body uses its nociceptors when detecting pain. As your body reacts to the pain – which emanates from the spinal nerve and travels to the injury site to the nerve endings – your body responds and reacts to the injury site with its flight or fight response.

After your body has been “notified” that there is pain or injury, a message is sent from the neuron to the spinal cord and then it crosses to the opposite side of the body and up into the brain. For example, if you are injured on the left side of your body, the pain signal goes to the right side of your spinal cord.

Your brain jumps into action and processes the pain signal. Medically speaking, “The location and intensity of the stimulus is deciphered by the primary and secondary somatosensory cortex. The emotions and automatic reactions to pain are processed in a number of location, including the hypothalamus, superior colliculus, and amygdala. The complete pain experience, however, arises from the co-operation of a network of brain areas.”

Additionally, if you have received pain caused by tissue damage – a bruise or a cut – your nociceptors become even more sensitive to pain. If your tissue is damaged, your body releases histamine, serotonin, and prostaglandin to the injury site to more quickly address the injury. To reduce the sensitivity to the injury and from the chemicals that your body has released, you can take medication to inhibit the production of these pain-inducing chemicals. Ibuprofen and aspirin are medications that help reduce the feeling of pain.

Your cerebral cortex is responsible for the release of endorphins to help alleviate your pain. Keep in mind, while all of this is happening internally, you may react in an “external” way by crying, or crying out momentarily when the injury occurs.