Dr. Aneesh Singla

And we may have, for example, an emotional response to that pain, but we also have a cognitive response.

When we injure ourselves or hurt ourselves, we think about the pain, and we can think about it differently.

And that is a very, very important point about pain.

And, you know, going back to some of, you know, Henry Beecher's work in World War II where he studied wounded soldiers, the soldiers that had really, really significant battlefield injuries considered to be highly traumatic, when they were offered morphine, 75% of them turned it down.

Right.

And that's because they probably viewed themselves differently than when, you know, a few minutes later when they're in the hospital ward getting treated, most of them are crying out in pain.

So, it doesn't really change what's happening in their bodies, their pain sensitivity, but what it is is it's a different story they're telling themselves about their pain.

When they're on the battlefield, they're heroes, they're fighting for freedom, but when they're in the hospital, they're sort of more victims, they're more vulnerable.

Yes.

I would say that you can set expectations.

And this actually ties in really nicely to a recent podcast you did on expectations.

And let me tell you, people's expectations around pain influence how much or how little pain they feel.

When you go and you explain a certain procedure, say that we're going to perform on a patient, and you explain exactly what's going to happen, oftentimes I see that patients experience less pain than if you just walk in there and,

and you start performing a procedure with little to no explanation, patients are not going to like that.

They're going to perceive more pain from that procedure.

So I think that, again, it ties into sort of, again, that story, that narrative that we're telling ourselves about the pain and how much influence that really does have on how we actually experience and feel that pain.

That's a really good question.

I think that what happens a lot of times in life is that we learn a lot from our bodies.

When our bodies undergo a transformative event, for example, like aging, we obviously tend to experience more breakdown of our bodies.

The cartilage in our joints may experience wear and tear.