Dear Senserely Yours,
I have recently embarked on this journey to attempt to lose some weight. I am having some problems because I am experiencing a great amount of pain during my workouts. Is there any possible way which I can desensitize myself?
With much pain,
Alex
Hello Alex!
First of all, I just would like to congratulate you on your current attempts to lose weight. I know exercise can be grueling and painful, bit it is a necessary step you need to take in order for you to lose weight. If you want to relieve pain post-workout, maybe you should try to take some over the counter painkillers which are easily accessible. If, however, you are not really into that, I have a suggestion which may actually improve your pain tolerance. I have to warn you though, if you are the conservative type, you will not like this suggestion.
Psychologist Richard Stephens and colleagues actually found out how cursing changes our response to pain. In their study, a number of participants placed their hands in an ice bath. As you can imagine, this has to be an extremely uncomfortable experience for those participants. Luckily, the participants could remove their hands at any point in this study the researchers sought to measure the amount of time spent in the ice bath as a measure of pain tolerance. Stephens and his colleagues then tasked the participants to repeat either a curse word or a neutral word (ie. table, chair) throughout the process.
The results of this study was actually surprising. Apparently, those who were cursing while dipping their hands in the cold water were able to sustain that position for longer period of time than those who were repeating neutral words. Maybe in your next workout, you can try this out. I suggest, though, that you don't raise your voice when you do so since we do live in a conservative country. With luck, you may be able to increase your workout time or intensity of your exercise.
How exactly does this work? The researchers theorized that cursing brings about certain emotions. Now, emotions and its influence of pain has been studied with rather inconsistent results. However, some emotions do have some pain-relieving effect. These emotions are mostly linked to fear which activates the fight-or-flight response in humans. The fight-or-flight response, as we all know, creates an array of physiological changes in the human body, and one of those effects is increased pain-tolerance. However, it is not certain whether fear is the specific emotion involved in this experience. Aggression could also be another emotion which is induced by cursing and could contribute to the pain-relieving effect.
Furthermore, cursing has been shown to activate different brain areas as compared to regular speech. Cursing activates some of the more ancient areas such as the amygdala which is a region of the brain related to the experience of fear. This region is also activated during the fight-or-flight response. Therefore, there may be actual truth in the hypothesis of Stephens and colleagues. So Alex, the next time you step into the gym and feel like you are being overcome by pain. Don't be shy and let out a few cuss words in order to relieve your pain.
Senserely yours,
Jan
References:
I have recently embarked on this journey to attempt to lose some weight. I am having some problems because I am experiencing a great amount of pain during my workouts. Is there any possible way which I can desensitize myself?
With much pain,
Alex
Hello Alex!
First of all, I just would like to congratulate you on your current attempts to lose weight. I know exercise can be grueling and painful, bit it is a necessary step you need to take in order for you to lose weight. If you want to relieve pain post-workout, maybe you should try to take some over the counter painkillers which are easily accessible. If, however, you are not really into that, I have a suggestion which may actually improve your pain tolerance. I have to warn you though, if you are the conservative type, you will not like this suggestion.
Psychologist Richard Stephens and colleagues actually found out how cursing changes our response to pain. In their study, a number of participants placed their hands in an ice bath. As you can imagine, this has to be an extremely uncomfortable experience for those participants. Luckily, the participants could remove their hands at any point in this study the researchers sought to measure the amount of time spent in the ice bath as a measure of pain tolerance. Stephens and his colleagues then tasked the participants to repeat either a curse word or a neutral word (ie. table, chair) throughout the process.
The results of this study was actually surprising. Apparently, those who were cursing while dipping their hands in the cold water were able to sustain that position for longer period of time than those who were repeating neutral words. Maybe in your next workout, you can try this out. I suggest, though, that you don't raise your voice when you do so since we do live in a conservative country. With luck, you may be able to increase your workout time or intensity of your exercise.
How exactly does this work? The researchers theorized that cursing brings about certain emotions. Now, emotions and its influence of pain has been studied with rather inconsistent results. However, some emotions do have some pain-relieving effect. These emotions are mostly linked to fear which activates the fight-or-flight response in humans. The fight-or-flight response, as we all know, creates an array of physiological changes in the human body, and one of those effects is increased pain-tolerance. However, it is not certain whether fear is the specific emotion involved in this experience. Aggression could also be another emotion which is induced by cursing and could contribute to the pain-relieving effect.
Furthermore, cursing has been shown to activate different brain areas as compared to regular speech. Cursing activates some of the more ancient areas such as the amygdala which is a region of the brain related to the experience of fear. This region is also activated during the fight-or-flight response. Therefore, there may be actual truth in the hypothesis of Stephens and colleagues. So Alex, the next time you step into the gym and feel like you are being overcome by pain. Don't be shy and let out a few cuss words in order to relieve your pain.
Senserely yours,
Jan
References:
Stephens, R., Atkins, J., & Kingston, A. (2009). Swearing as a response to pain. Neuroreport, 20(12), 1056-1060.
Picture credits:
http://burlingtonneurology.com/assets/images/neck%20pain%20image.jpg
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