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How to Control Your Sense of Pain & Pleasure | Huberman Lab Essentials
@ Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
Takeaways
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Pain and pleasure are sensations that reflect opposite ends of a continuum, involving detection through our skin and interpretation by our brain.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Our skin is the largest sensory organ, acting as a barrier and housing neurons that detect sensations like light touch, temperature, and pressure.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Pleasure is a sensation that encourages us to pursue more of what brings it, while pain prompts us to withdraw from harmful activities.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The brain interprets electrical signals from sensory neurons, creating experiences of pleasure and pain based on both innate and learned factors.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The somatosensory cortex contains a map of the body, known as the homunculus, which is organized to reflect the density of sensory receptors in different areas.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Two-point discrimination is a test that demonstrates how areas with higher sensory receptor density, like the lips and fingertips, can better distinguish between two points of pressure.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Factors such as expectation, anxiety, sleep quality, circadian rhythms, and genetics all influence our pain thresholds and experiences of pleasure. To reduce pain, it's beneficial to know about a painful stimulus 20 to 40 seconds in advance, as this highlights the importance of subjective interpretation in pain perception.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Expectations about pain can significantly alter our experience; being warned about an upcoming painful stimulus can help reduce the pain response.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
If a painful stimulus is anticipated too close to its occurrence, it can increase anxiety and worsen the pain experience due to heightened arousal.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Pain threshold varies among individuals and consists of two dimensions: the intensity of stimulation required to elicit a pain response and the duration of pain experienced.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Experiments show that people can experience the same cold stimulus very differently, with pain ratings ranging from 1 to 10, indicating that there is no objective measure of pain.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Pleasure, like pain, is subjective and cannot be accurately gauged except through personal reports, emphasizing the need to understand the absolute qualities of both experiences.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
When entering cold water, it's more comfortable to jump in all at once rather than gradually, as the body's cold receptors respond to relative temperature changes.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Heat should be approached gradually, as our neurons measure it in absolute terms, making it safer and more comfortable to find a personal threshold.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Our experience of pain does not always correlate with the actual damage to our body, as illustrated by a case where a construction worker felt excruciating pain from a nail that did not penetrate his foot.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The term 'psychosomatic' should not imply that pain is merely in one's head; all pain experiences are neural, regardless of whether they stem from physical injury or not.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Fibromyalgia, once dismissed as a syndrome, is now understood to be linked to the activation of glial cells and the Toll-4 receptor, which are involved in whole body pain.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Naltrexone, a drug used for opioid addiction, has shown promise in treating fibromyalgia at low doses by blocking Toll-4 receptors on glial cells.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Acetylcarnitine may reduce symptoms of chronic whole-body pain and is available in various forms, including oral capsules and injections.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Acupuncture, particularly electroacupuncture, has gained scientific attention for its effectiveness in treating certain types of pain, though responses can vary widely among individuals.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Electroacupuncture can activate sympathetic ganglia and influence inflammation, which may explain why some people experience pain relief while others do not.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Stimulation of the legs through electroacupuncture can activate neural circuits that lead to the release of anti-inflammatory catecholamines, potentially reducing pain and aiding wound healing.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Redheads have a higher pain threshold on average due to the MC1R gene, which influences the production of proteins related to pain perception, including melanocyte-stimulating hormone and beta-endorphin.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
The MC1R gene is linked to the production of beta-endorphins, which help reduce pain perception, indicating that redheads produce more of these natural pain-relieving substances.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Dopamine plays a crucial role in modulating pain by activating brain stem neurons that communicate with immune cells, enhancing our resilience against pain and infection.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Pleasure serves an adaptive role in species survival, closely tied to sexual reproduction, which is associated with the sensation of pleasure and the release of neurochemicals like dopamine and serotonin.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Dopamine is linked to the anticipation of pleasure and motivation, while serotonin is more associated with the immediate experience of pleasure, both being essential for emotional well-being.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Low levels of dopamine and serotonin can lead to anhedonia, making it difficult to experience pleasure, which is why treatments like antidepressants aim to raise these baseline levels.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Excessive dopamine release can lead to habituation, where the brain becomes less responsive to pleasure, while simultaneously increasing the perception of pain, a mechanism that can contribute to addiction.
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Andrew Huberman
06/19/25
@ Andrew Huberman
Understanding the interaction between pleasure and pain, along with the underlying biological systems, is essential for managing our subjective experiences of these sensations.