That smarts.. painful truths
1 Women have more nerves in every part of the body, which means they have better pain-coping skills.
2 Hypnobirthing is a process where a woman goes into a state of relaxation using meditation that allows the body to change how it reacts during childbirth. It was used by presenter Fearne Cotton.
3 While the brain processes it, it can’t actually feel pain. Nerve fibres send signals letting the brain know something has happened when we injure our body that tell the brain to interpret the message as pain.
4 During brain surgery, anaesthesia is administered to the scalp only, where pain can be picked up.
5 Distraction is great for pain. Putting ice on a mosquito bite for instance makes us focus on the cold instead of the sting.
6 Chronic pain sufferers have been found to have brains 11% smaller than average. Boffins don’t know why this happens.
7 The gene which controls which colour of hair we will be born with has an impact on how pain is felt in the body. Redheads have a lower pain tolerance than people with any other hair colour.
8 An extremely rare condition called congenital insensitivity to pain means a person cannot feel pain due to connections to the brain not being wired up correctly. What you eat and drink can
9 trigger your response to pain. People with food intolerances suffer from inflammation in the body. Boozing and eating sweets can also trigger an inflammatory response.
10 The naked mole-rat found in Africa does not feel certain types of pain. It’s been found to resist the burn of spicy plants and insect bites.
11 Lying around in bed to help back pain has the opposite effect. Keeping active is better at resolving any problems.
12 Having sex during a migraine helped ease the pain of 60% of sufferers, a 2013 study found.
13 Famous songs about pain include R.E.M’s Everybody Hurts, and Culture Club’s Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
14 Celine Dion has a diagnosis of Stiff Person Syndrome, which causes painful muscle spasms.
15 Singer Lady Gaga has fibromyalgia, which causes chronic pain and forced her to cancel gigs.