[seriously disabled]

Why do some people seem to be very tolerant to pain?

In the news I often hear that some people commit very painful suicides. Are these people actually NOT afraid of painful death and if so what makes them so special that they don't actually feel much pain?

This post has been edited by seriously disabled: 7 January 2012 - 10:47 PM

[keep_talking]

Thresholds of pain vary from organism to organism.

Take for instance, the collection of nerves at a given body point. Are they exactly the same for you as they are for me?

Less nerves = less pain sensory

More nerves = more sensory.

Take for instance, the skin on your elbow. You can grab and squeeze it as hard as you want, typically you wont feel a thing.

Environmental circumstances play a roll as well. There are tribes of indigenous people who willingly accept pain, and tune it out as a rite of passage.

[Tres Juicy]

conditioning and nerve damage is also a factor

[Chap]

yes, the concentration of nerves in the body, the pain threshold (the point at which you begin to feel pain) and possible nerve damage all are contributing factors in this case.

Another important factor is the tolerance of different individuals to pain. MRI scanning has shown that in people who are very sensitive to pain, the parts of the brain involved in:
1) feeling the intensity of pain and its location (the primary somatosensory cortex)
2) processing the unpleasant feelings of pain (anterior cingulate cortex )
both show high level of activity. In people who show low sensitivity to pain, these areas of the brain do not show high level of activity.
So the brain also plays an important part in feeling pain.

[Tres Juicy]

Chap, on 10 January 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

yes, the concentration of nerves in the body, the pain threshold (the point at which you begin to feel pain) and possible nerve damage all are contributing factors in this case.

Another important factor is the tolerance of different individuals to pain. MRI scanning has shown that in people who are very sensitive to pain, the parts of the brain involved in:
1) feeling the intensity of pain and its location (the primary somatosensory cortex)
2) processing the unpleasant feelings of pain (anterior cingulate cortex )
both show high level of activity. In people who show low sensitivity to pain, these areas of the brain do not show high level of activity.
So the brain also plays an important part in feeling pain.

"the brain also plays an important part in feeling pain"

Part of conditioning is to teach your brain to expect a certain amount of pain and deal with it, as a practising martial artist for many years if I take a break from training (like at Christmas) I actually miss the residual level of pain that is usually with me (like an old friend) and feel strangely unsettled.