Blog

Apr 19

Imagine being asked to put your hand into a bucket of ice-cold water and keep it there until it was so uncomfortable you had to take it out. Then imagine 7,000 (or thereabout) other people doing this same thing. It might sound like some sort of cruel and unusual punishment, but in actuality, it is one of the most commonly used methods to assess pain tolerance, a surprisingly adaptable "warning system" that helps us to safely interface with the world around us by allowing us to quickly determine whether or not something is likely to cause us harm. Accidentally touch something "too hot", that is, beyond the threshold of our tolerance such as a pan on the stove, and our brain quickly knows to pull back from the source because it could cause severe harm. Step outside on a cool morning and feel the less intense, sub-threshold warmth of the sunshine and we might find ourselves turning into it because this level of the same kind of stress (thermal) is not a threat. For most of us, pain is a reliable threat-detection system, however in some situations, such as in chronic pain, things can get a bit miscalibrated, and our brain can overreact keeping our default setting so close to the threshold that the feeling of pain and the level of threat or risk become decoupled. Not surprisingly, lots of study goes into understanding how the system works in hopes of guiding how to keep it working well and even to reset it if the need arises.

One of the more interesting findings in the last few years came from a research team in Norway in 2023 which found a link between movement habits and pain tolerance. Specifically, they found that as leisure time physical activity went up, so did pain tolerance on the hand submersion (aka Cold Pressor) test. Even with as much as 8 years between measurements, those who were physically active or became physically active, had a higher tolerance - suggesting that not only do our tissues physically toughen with regular use, but that our threat-detection system which protects those tissues, also adapts to account for this new resilience.

It is probably not, however, an endless potential. It is far more likely another of our many physiological Goldilocks phenomena, in this case where the brain progressively turns the volume up, possibly to the point of over-sensitive when it's not being adequately used and down, possibly to the point of non-functional in the case of excessive stimulation. One study for example showed that both elite athletes ("too hot") and non-athletes ("too cold") were less accurate than non-elite athletes ("just right") when it came to tasks that required "listening to their bodies", called interoception. The question then, especially for those that may have long-standing aches or pains (e.g. > 90 days) or multiple body areas that are always cranky which can be a sign of this decoupling is "How can we start to reset things"?

While the initial answer is almost always "it depends" and therefore quickly followed by "that's why you have us, let's dive into it and find out", the eventual answer might include FUEL changes toward lower-inflammatory eating (such as those described in this study), an emphasis on tactics known to increase how well we RECOVER through better sleep (known to impact our pain sensitivity) and, with even more evidence out last month from the same Norway based team described above normalizing physical activity patterns, which often means MOVE more to reset pain tolerance and lower the likelihood of chronic pain.

Resetting can be challenging, sometimes to the point of daunting when we've got an ache or pain that's been with us for a bit. However, the more we learn the more confident we are when we say it can be done. We're here when you're ready.

Have a great weekend,

Mike E.