Is Pain Inevitable to The Human Experience?
A reflective exploration of that universally shared human experience
Curious about human pain, I recently asked this question to a medical practitioner and he answered me: “interesting, let me think about this and I will let you know my thoughts on a future occasion”.
This question has been wandering my mind: is there an alternative to the human suffering? Can a human being go through life without pain or suffering?
In Buddhist psychology it is recognised that pain does not equal suffering. They emphasise that you can basically be in pain but not suffer from it. How is that possible? I’ve been exploring this theory for 7 months and in practice it seems challenging.
Meaning in life as a way to cope with pain?
As the global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh has described: “even if we are in pain, if we can see meaning in life, we will have energy and joy” (Hanh, 1973, p.216).
So in theory, according to this statement, as long as one sees meaning in life and the eventual purpose of pain; one can feel less pain. Is that so?
The other way that is often mentioned by practitioners is the brain’s role in pain.
Mind mastering as a way to cope with pain?
The brain plays an important role in every pain condition. Even when the pain is from a physical injury or disease (retrainpain.org). Put simply: your brain can increase or decrease the felt pain depending on either you have nerve hypersensitivity or not. The nerves are protective of the body and can often overestimate the danger (the pain) in order to protect the body based on past painful events. On the other hand you have the descending inhibition which lessens the felt pain by releasing chemicals such as dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, etc.
From the moment one is aware of this, one can get on exploring how to balance those both based on personal pragmatic data.
Can thinking pattern affect the pain?
The other way one can manage the pain it’s by thinking. It is often the thoughts associated with the felt pain that can either increase or decrease the pain intensity. So in theory you can decrease the level of your pain by how you think about it.
Let’s take an example:
You suddenly feel pain and you think this must be very serious. You start making the worst case scenario (most of us act this way even the most optimistic ones). That catastrophic thinking will send signals to your brain that the danger is real. From there you nervous system will follow and amplify the pain. Because usually when you think that the pain you’re feeling may be serious: your body is tense, your muscles as well, your whole physiology changes. That create tension in the body thus increase signals sent to the nervous system that something is out of order.
On the other side if one manages to be pragmatic with the felt pain (easily written than done) by sending calming signals such as breathing and playing pleasant memories in one’s mind, this thinking pattern will tend to lessen the tension in the body thus the pain.
Further reflections
- Why “felt pain”?
Why do we call it a “feeling” when it’s real and almost tangible to the one experiencing it?
- Hope for a universal pain barometer?
Will the science and human unlimited creativity find a universal barometer to measure pain except the basic one: «from 0 to 10 how would you qualify your pain»? How subjective is that one? Because the one in pain cannot obviously answer objectively since that individual is in a state of pain.
So many questions that I am confident life will answer me throughout time. As long as one lives one will find the answers one is looking for with determination and commitment.
Until next time dear reader: thank you for your time and take good care of you.
Where can Annick be virtually found outside of Medium?
