Something You Should Know - Secrets of the Universe with Neil deGrasse Tyson & Why Pain Hurts

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, a little trick that will keep milk fresher longer in your refrigerator. Then astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses the secrets of the universe, why we're here, and if there's intelligent life out there. Oh, by the way, who defined us as intelligent? That's an important question.

Starting point is 00:00:52 We defined ourselves as intelligent. So would we be intelligent to an alien species who has the technology to jet between galaxies? Then, how self-fulfilling prophecies work in your everyday life. And understanding pain, why we feel it, what it does, and what can make pain more painful. We learn throughout our life that when we go to the doctor, pain is going to happen. And so, when we expect pain, we start generating an experience of pain even before the actual external stimuli has hit our skin. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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Starting point is 00:01:54 And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Yeah, and when he says the world's top experts, we do try to find the world's top experts. I think we've accomplished that today. We've got Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist who is well regarded as one of the top experts on the universe. And Margie Kerr, a sociologist who was an expert on pain. Something that we all feel and could all maybe use some help with.

Starting point is 00:02:26 First up today, this is something that I've been doing for a long time, and I'm not sure why I haven't talked about this before. But I read it, I tried it, and it works. If you want to keep milk tasting fresh well past the expiration date, you just add a pinch of salt to it. You have to do it when you first buy the milk and get it home. You just open up the carton, you add a pinch of salt, and shake. Salt is a natural preservative, and it slows down the growth of the bacteria. And such a small amount of salt

Starting point is 00:02:58 is not going to affect the taste of the milk at all, but it can double the length of your milk's shelf life. And by the way, the same goes for reheated or burnt or bitter coffee. Just a dash of salt will take that edge off. And that is something you should know. Have you ever thought about why you're here and how you got here to this point in time in the universe? And where are we all going? These are some big, heady questions that can sometimes be fun to contemplate and even more fun to discuss with someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson. So let's do that.

Starting point is 00:03:40 You know, people sometimes say they like my voice. I get that a lot. One of the voices I like to listen to is the voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson. And you can hear his voice in a lot of places. He has a podcast called Star Talk, and he's also on TV a lot. I find that after I listen to him speak, I just feel a little bit smarter. Like I understand the world and the universe a little bit better. See if you don't feel the same way in about 20 minutes when we're done. In addition to all of his other work, Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium

Starting point is 00:04:15 in New York City, and he has a new book out called Cosmic Queries, StarTalk's guide to who we are, how we got here, and where we're going. Hi, Neil. Thanks for being here. Excellent. Thank you for having me. So let's just dive right in. How did we get here? Not on this podcast, but I mean, in this universe. How did we get here? Why are we here? There are a lot of ways to answer that. There are people who like thinking of the universe as this haven for life and it's perfect laws of physics come together to enable life. But first of all, the universe would have gone nearly a billion years before Earth even

Starting point is 00:05:02 formed. So if the universe were made for life, such as what we have here on Earth, it has a really delayed way of showing it. All right? And so that's my first comment. Second, the elements in our bodies, the carbon, the nitrogen, the oxygen, the foundations of our biochemistry,

Starting point is 00:05:22 that was not available at the beginning of the universe. That had to be made later in the cores of our biochemistry, that was not available at the beginning of the universe. That had to be made later in the cores of stars. And we see this happening. These are stars that then explode, scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy, out of which you make the next generation of stars with planets, at least one of which has life. But then you make the planet and you have all these ingredients. How do you go from just organic molecules to self-replicating life? That remains a mystery. We've got top people working on it. But one of the things about cosmic queries is we are not choosing questions based on what we have answers to. We're choosing questions based on what people have asked. And then we, and it's laid bare.

Starting point is 00:06:10 All right. I can tell you how, where we got the atoms. I can tell you how the atoms function later on. But how we go from molecules to life, that's a mystery. Other mysteries. What was around before the Big Bang? Don't know. We have some ideas and here they are, but we don't know.

Starting point is 00:06:27 Do we have any sense of, you know, cells come from other cells, so where did the first cell come from? You know, chicken or egg? Okay, well, so first the chicken-egg question does have an answer. So I'm trying to rid the world of people analogizing such questions to the chicken and egg. So would you like me to give you that answer? Please. Okay, so the egg came first. From where? By a bird that you would not have called a chicken. Okay. This is what you get by sort of the evolution of species. So there's some bird and it's not a chicken. And then there's some distortion in its offspring from a defect in the DNA. We'll call it a defect because what comes out is not what it started with, right? And it's some new kind of variation.

Starting point is 00:07:16 Now, in practice, it would have taken many, many generations for this to happen. But at some point, you're calling the bird a not chicken and then the egg that hatches out a chicken. And at that point, the chicken was laid by a bird that was not a chicken. Okay. So the egg came first. Well, that sounds easier than if cells come from other cells, where did the first cell come from? Oh yes, that is easier. So now getting back to that one, a cell is a living thing. So that's my point. How do you go from organic molecules to self-replicating life? That's a mystery. We have top people working on it. So I know you talk about questions that are not the right question, that we can try to answer the question, but if you're asking the wrong question, you're not going to get anywhere. So what are some questions that are the wrong questions? Oh, okay. I got one for you. I'll give you two examples.

Starting point is 00:08:13 Here's one that you know not to ask because it's illegal in our own universe. You ready? So you go visit Santa Claus on the North Pole and you say, Santa, please point me north of here. The problem is, every direction Santa points in is due south. There is no east or west either. So to say, what is north of the North Pole, is a sentence that has no meaning. Here's another one, okay? How about Pinocchio? You tell me, what will happen if pinocchio declares

Starting point is 00:08:47 if pinocchio says my nose is about to grow you tell me what happens next well his nose can't grow or can it i don't know okay if his nose doesn't grow then he was lying because he just said his nose is about to grow. If he lies, it means his nose has to grow. If he says it and his nose grows, that meant saying his nose was about to grow was true and if it's true, that means his nose wouldn't grow. So that's a simple statement that actually has no meaning in the Pinocchio universe.

Starting point is 00:09:27 So all I'm saying is, in the universe in which we live, I take you to the precipice and dangle you over the abyss of the unknown. And I ask you, what's the next question? You might come up with a question, but there's no guarantee that that question is even valid in the universe that you're now on the doorstep of discovering. Well, the question a lot of people ask and have been asking for a long time is, is there life elsewhere? And you would say... I would say it's highly likely for several reasons coming together. The universe is old. The ingredients of life are everywhere. If life on Earth were made of really rare things, I would say, yeah, life is probably rare.

Starting point is 00:10:12 But the most common atom in the universe is hydrogen. It's the most common atom in life. The next most common atom in the universe is after helium, which is chemically inert, so that's not useful, the next most common is oxygen. That's the next most common atom in life. The next most common is carbon. That's what's next in life. So what's next in the universe? Nitrogen. That's what's next in life. The top four chemically active ingredients of the universe

Starting point is 00:10:45 are the top four atoms in the human body and in life on earth. So maybe life is an inevitable consequence of organic chemistry. We don't know. So there's that. And also life got started really fast. On earth, you look at the data, life from non-life to life took maybe 100 million years. You say, well, that's a long time, Dr. Tyson. Well, not really if Earth is four and a half billion years old. 100 million is pittance relative to that timeline. So Earth made life almost as soon as it possibly could have, and didn't seem to have trouble accomplishing it, even if we have trouble in the lab. Combine all those factors, life happened quickly, common ingredients, and the universe is old. I wouldn't be surprised if life wasn't

Starting point is 00:11:37 teeming everywhere in the universe, just for those factors alone. Intelligent life? That's different, because look at all the life forms Earth has had. Millions, I think. I don't remember the exact number, but it's huge. Most of which are now extinct for all manner of various reasons over the history of the tree of life. But, oh, by the way, who defined us as intelligent? That's an important question. We defined ourselves as intelligent. So would we be intelligent to an alien species who has the technology to jet between galaxies? Could they be so intelligent that human intelligence pales in comparison?

Starting point is 00:12:20 The way, you know, the hubris of people saying the aliens are watching us. They care about us. It's like when you walk past worms, are you saying, gee hubris of people saying, the aliens are watching us. They care about us. It's like when you walk past worms, are you saying, gee, I wonder what that worm is thinking? Gee, I'm completely interested in this worm. Unless you're a nematode specialist, you're probably not caring what the worm is thinking about. So to believe we are so interesting that they'll perform sex experiments on us and draw circles in wheat fields all for our benefit, that's thinking you're really in the center of the universe.

Starting point is 00:12:53 So let's assume we are intelligent even by alien standards. We are one life form out of a million on earth, one species. Intelligence doesn't seem to be all that important for life. Otherwise, it would have shown up many more times in the fossil record, like locomotion, like sight, like hearing, like the ability to manipulate your environment. These have shown up many ways, many times in the fossil record, and intelligence has not. So what's clear to me about that is intelligence is not all that important. Intelligence as we define it for ourselves is not all that important for our survival, for the survival of a life form.

Starting point is 00:13:35 Otherwise it would have evolved many more times in the fossil record. So it could be that our intelligence is extremely rare in the universe. Or if it's not rare, we are nowhere near the measure of intelligence that the universe manifests. We're talking about the universe, and my guest is Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is host of the podcast StarTalk, and he is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and author of the book, Cosmic Queries. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com.

Starting point is 00:14:38 This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. So, Neil, since people started looking up at the stars and saying, you know, we really need to study this. We need to understand this. Whenever that happened up till now, has the, the, the knowledge come in at a fairly steady rate or have there been

Starting point is 00:15:19 big moments where everything changed? Any period of great discovery, discoveries happen exponentially. So I can be more precise about that. I have a book from 1890 on the sun. And the first edition of that book was like 1886 or something, something like that, around there. And well, why did the second edition come out four years later?

Starting point is 00:15:44 Well, the author writes writes i paraphrase scientific advances in our understanding of the sun has been so great we had to put out another edition to catch up on things this person in 1890 is glorifying the pace of scientific discovery when you are on an exponential curve of discovery, every moment you look at it, it looks like all the greatest advances happened in the recent years. That's what being on an exponential curve means. So yeah, if it looks like you're living in special times, that is the hallmark of a period of exponential discovery. What do you think was the big game changer? If there was one or maybe two,

Starting point is 00:16:29 everything changed. I would say Isaac Newton demonstrating that the universe was mathematically knowable. That was profound. You can write down an equation and make a prediction about something you've never seen

Starting point is 00:16:45 before because you've connected the mathematics to the operations of nature. That was a game changer. Well, knowing that we don't know what we don't know, how much do we know compared to what we probably don't know? Four percent. You said that with some authority. so where did the number come from? Let's not call it authority. Let's just call it knowledge.

Starting point is 00:17:11 Okay. Authority is telling you what to think and believe, whether or not it's true. Authority has the power to make that happen. But if it's just knowledge, anybody could have it and share it. So all the chemistry and biology and physics that you know and love that is taught in the schools drives 4% of the phenomenon of the universe. The remaining 96% is dark matter and dark energy about which we know nothing. We can measure its existence. We can see its effect gravitationally on objects. We don't know where it came from.

Starting point is 00:17:47 We don't know what it is. We don't know why it's there. We can't even characterize it. So our airplanes, our rocket ships, our energy, our civilizations are all living in 4% of the known universe. So this may or may not be a fair question, but because you've taken in all this knowledge and you have synthesized it and you're well known for being able to explain it in a very interesting and compelling and fortunately for many of us a simple way, does all of that make you more spiritual or less spiritual? I would say more spiritual. Spiritual in the sense of, it's spiritual sort of capital S. So spirit, I think from the Latin, is your breath, right? And your breath was equated to being alive,

Starting point is 00:18:43 right, for the longest time. It would hold up a mirror in front of your dying body. And the moment you no longer fogged the mirror, you were declared dead. So your spirit left your body. So when I think of gazing on the darkened universe on a mountaintop where I have a telescope that I'm about to use for scientific means. But before I enter the dome, I gaze upon the limitlessness of it and the majesty of it. That's a spiritual moment, I think, and sort of the glory of the universe. And I bet it taps, I don't know this for sure, but I bet it taps similar parts of my brain that religious experiences tap in people's brains who have experienced those. If that's the case, I have no hesitation calling them spiritual

Starting point is 00:19:31 experiences. But when I use the word spiritual, I am in no way invoking a God who made the universe in six days and cares about who you sleep with. Right? This is not my usage of the term. So how does this all end? Where does the universe go when it goes? Yeah. So often when people say, how will it end? They're really only thinking about earth and there's some fun, interesting scenarios to get rid of earth. Basically the sun will absorb it and vaporize it in about 5, 6 billion years. So we need to find another planet by then if our species survives that long. So that's cool. I mean, it's not cool.

Starting point is 00:20:18 I mean, it's just the reality of it as the sun expands to engulf the orbits of Mercury and Venus and bringing the oceans of Earth into a rolling boil. That's a bad day for Earth. So at the end of Earth is vapor inside the Sun. But the end of the universe is more intriguing because the universe can take any one of a dozen pathways and we don't know enough to land on which pathway is highly likely. So that's why we give all the scenarios in it. And the ending that terrifies me the most is the one where we end up expanding because the expansion is growing exponentially, the expansion of the universe. So eventually the expansion is growing exponentially the expansion of the universe so eventually the expansion will rip all the galaxies from our night sky and then it'll rip

Starting point is 00:21:10 the stars from our night sky then it'll start ripping molecules from your body and then it starts ripping the structures of the atoms from the molecules and then the atoms themselves the particles within the atoms themselves and when you do that there's no other way the expansion of the universe can accommodate it and It's called the big rip Which is terrifying to me. Yes, the big rip where it's like you're stretching some flexi cloth And then there's a point where it no longer stretches, and what does it do? It rips. I can't even picture what that would look like or what it would be.

Starting point is 00:21:53 But it's nonetheless terrifying to me. Sounds horrible. But it's not happening anytime soon, so don't lose sleep over it. Yeah, and not this week or anything. So can you explain, because we hear this often, that the universe is expanding, and it's expanding exponentially, you said. What does that mean, and what's it expanding into? Yeah, that's a perfect, honest question to ask. It depends on what kind of multiverse it is.

Starting point is 00:22:23 If it's the simplest of multiverses, then the full extent of the actual universe is vastly greater than the universe you can see. And so our pocket that's expanding is simply expanding into other parts of our universe. Okay. So as would be any Big Bang manifested in the rest of this multiverse. So the problem is if multiple universes invokes higher dimensions so that it's creating a whole other universe with other laws of physics, then first that would be really dangerous to visit. You'd take your health into your own hands by doing so,

Starting point is 00:23:05 because the charge on the electron could be different. And you walk across the proscenium, and then you collapse into a pile of goo, because the molecular forces are no longer apply. So in that universe, that's in another dimension. And so we would expand, but never interact with that other universe. You might say, well, how can you expand forever but not bump into another universe? Well, I can have a sheet of paper that's flat, obviously, and I can stretch it in the two dimensions. If I layer another sheet of paper

Starting point is 00:23:37 right on top of it, not touching it, but above it, I can stretch both sheets of paper to infinity and they'll never intersect each other. So that's obvious because they're not in the same plane. Well, going from three dimensions to higher, in a higher dimension, the lower dimension entities can expand forever and not end up colliding. So if you're eager to get a parallel universe, we might have a twin of you, don't hold your breath about whether it's one we can interact with.

Starting point is 00:24:09 It's very hard to grasp that there's parallel universes. Yeah, I mean, most of it is hard to grasp. I've said many times that the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. So what matters is whether it satisfies experiment and observation. Well, I wish it would make sense to you. So what matters is whether it satisfies experiment and observation. Well, I wish it would make sense. It would make it easier to make sense of it all. No, but you can't because your senses were developed on the plains of the Serengeti to not get eaten by a lion. They're not designed for math or probability or statistics or fundamental physics. So yeah, it's a problem.

Starting point is 00:24:46 It's a problem. We're stuck with our own biology. Well, it's pretty exciting stuff. And it's just amazing when you stop and look up at the sky. And I do this often and just think, how amazing is it that I am here right now at this time in this place? It's hard to fathom. Yeah, it's quite the, and it's, dare I use the word,

Starting point is 00:25:08 it's a miracle that you're even alive, given how many possible humans there could be that will never be born. That's something to contemplate. Wow. Well, it's always a pleasure to hear you speak. I enjoy the chance to interact with you, and I always feel a little bit smarter afterwards. Neil deGrasse Tyson has been my guest.

Starting point is 00:25:29 He is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. His podcast is called Star Talk, and his new book is called Cosmic Queries, Star Talk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Neil. Appreciate you being here. Yeah, thanks for your interest. Been a pleasure.

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Starting point is 00:26:32 Because the way they play today shapes who they become tomorrow. Melissa and Doug. The play is pretend. The skills are real. Look for Melissa and Doug wherever you shop for toys. You know what pain is. You certainly know it when you feel it. Pain hurts. That's how you know you feel pain. But pain turns out to be a far more interesting topic than just,

Starting point is 00:27:02 you hurt yourself, you feel pain. Pain is subjective, and it's affected by a lot of things. Thank you. interesting. Margie Kerr is a sociologist who has been teaching and conducting research on this since 2004. She is co-author of the book, Ouch! Why Pain Hurts and Why It Doesn't Have To. Hi, Margie. Hello, thank you for having me. So certainly everybody has experienced pain. We all know what pain is, but what is it? What is it really? It's a feeling, it's a sensation, it is, and it hurts, but what is it? Well, that was actually the question that really had me thinking to begin with, to really question what is pain. It is one of those words that when you say it, everybody kind of knows what you mean, but if you go and try to define it very explicitly, it can be a challenge

Starting point is 00:28:06 because everybody does have their own kind of internal dictionary of different types of pain. And so I wanted to really break that down and get at the root of what is pain. And your conclusion is what? The big kind of conclusion is that pain really is whatever you say it is. But pain, you know, it is a very complex, very dynamic kind of experience. And it's constructed for more than just what is happening at a sensory level. Our experience of pain is influenced by the people that we're with, our motivations, you know, why we're in whatever place that we're in. It's influenced by our culture, by religion, our age.

Starting point is 00:28:50 I mean, so many factors come into play when we construct an experience, an instance of pain. So the real message is that because pain is so complex, because there are so many components that can go into constructing it, there's opportunity to go in and start messing with some of those components to try and increase people's ability to manage pain, to really have more control over their pain. Well, it's interesting that pain, I've always thought it's interesting that pain is so subjective in the sense that, you know, when you're a kid and you get a shot at the doctor, it's just the worst.

Starting point is 00:29:32 When you're an adult, it's not that big a deal. And like when the dentist shoots you with some Novocaine, because you're like on hyper alert for pain, you feel it. But that same pain probably wouldn't bother you if somebody came up and pinched you and gave you the same sensation. You'd hardly notice it. It seems like a lot of it is in your interpretation of what's going on. Absolutely. It's really kind of the consequence of our highly evolved brains. We've evolved to function mostly on prediction. So, you know, we learn throughout our life, what things are associated that when we go to the doctor, pain is going to happen. And so when we expect pain, we start generating an experience of pain, even before the actual external stimuli has hit our skin before the needle has even punctured, our expectation of

Starting point is 00:30:26 pain has created that experience of pain. That's the nocebo effect, the placebo's dark side. And I imagine, well, I know Matt, I'm sure of that, you know, pain serves a very useful purpose that, you know, if it hurts, we pay attention and maybe we need to be paying attention. Pain is an incredible corrective. I mean, it is what is responsible for keeping the human species alive. Our ability to have that automatic response when something has damaged our skin, we learn so quickly whether something is harmful or helpful, good or bad. And in fact, it was through my studies of fear that I really started to try and understand pain even more because pain is often used in the study of fear. So if you want to understand how people manage stress, you can do some fear conditioning, which usually involves

Starting point is 00:31:20 inducing pain through maybe a mild electrical stimulation or, you know, a very cold water. But I started wondering, well, pain must then be the biggest bad, the most feared kind of experience. But it does come down to that context, to what is it that we're expecting to experience in this place. And it is incredible that by changing the context, changing the framing, we can change our intensity of pain at a physiological level. So I have this sense, and I imagine this is true, that there is some sort of pain tolerance scale and that some people are able to tolerate more pain or pain for a longer period of time than others. But how big is that scale? How much more can somebody tolerate pain than somebody who's at the other end of that scale? How big is the scale? It varies drastically. So you look at endurance athletes, for example,

Starting point is 00:32:26 there's the pain threshold. So at what point are they going to say, ouch, and then there's the pain tolerance. So how long can someone, you know, endure that painful stimulation. And there is a lot of variability, both between people, but then you do see groups of people like endurance athletes who have had to manage so much pain throughout sport that they have, you know, higher thresholds, they have more of ability to endure what would probably make a lot of people scream pretty early. But it's interesting, because athletes have managed pain for so long, they sometimes can be more sensitive to minor types of pain. So for example, just stubbing their toe, and that's because their system has essentially recalibrated to raise the bar on when the, you know, their endogenous painkillers are

Starting point is 00:33:20 going to kick in. So basically, you know, they stub a toe and it hurts. It's because their sympathetic nervous system is essentially saying, that's no big deal. I'm not going to help you out in that because I'm going to wait until you're running for 26 miles. Then we'll start kicking in the endogenous opioids and endocannabinoids, all of the things that our body produces on its own to help us manage pain. How well does the human body adapt to pain? And what I mean by that is, if you're subjected to pain over and over and over again, does it become less painful? Do you get sort of used to it? Is there any way to tell that? You know, there's been a lot of studies looking at how people adapt to serious pain,

Starting point is 00:34:09 and there's a lot of variability. I'll use the example of endurance athletes. You know, with every marathon run that they do, they learn a little bit more about how to reframe the sensations they're feeling. So they start feeling, you know, an intense throbbing as just a, you know, a vibration, something that isn't as aversive as what they may have thought it felt like the very first time. So, you know, people can develop coping mechanisms over time to try and, you know, really manage their pain, but it also depends on context. So people who have experienced pain as a result of trauma also have a lot of fear, a lot of other contextual factors that are going to make it all the worse and a more layered experience as opposed to someone who does get hurt in the

Starting point is 00:34:58 course of running a marathon. People who suffer chronic pain, who basically hurt every day, it does seem that because they have to, they somehow adapt to it, or do they? And if they do, how do they? Not everybody does, and that's one of the real challenges of chronic pain is that it is chronic and unrelenting for a lot of people. And there's many different forms of chronic pain, but one way to help manage it is through, surprisingly, just acceptance. We interviewed a cardiac surgeon who deals with a lot of patients who suffer from angina, which is the just crippling pain from a heart disease. And one of the biggest ways that he helps his patients is through teaching them to not be afraid of the pain and to, you know, accept that that pain may

Starting point is 00:35:53 arrive. But through that process of acceptance, there's not the follow up of the fear that can really ramp up the intensity of the pain. The subtitle of your book is interesting because why pain hurts and why it doesn't have to, well, if it doesn't hurt, it isn't pain. But if it is pain, that's a pretty big promise that if it doesn't have to, how does it not have to? Well, I think that that's the first thing that we challenge is that, you know, not everything that we think of as pain hurts, and it depends on how you are defining pain. For example, we talk about how something can hurt. But does that mean that you have to suffer? You know, how can you find ways to take back a sense of control to, you know, really kind of own your pain so that you're the one who can direct how it's going to impact your

Starting point is 00:36:46 life, how you're going to make sense of it. And studies show that that really is powerful. Being able to gain a sense of control over your pain does work to minimize the unpleasantness of pain. Is all pain explainable? When my head hurts with a headache, do we know what that is? If factor, what is happening that is producing this. But there is still a lot left unknown. And there's still so much that we don't understand about how an experience of pain can be constructed. But the definition of pain today does allow for those uncertainties, it does allow for, you know, a person to come in and say, I'm in pain. And even if the doctor can't locate, you know, it down to the, the dysfunction or a broken bone, it's still considered, you know, a legitimate pain.

Starting point is 00:38:12 It's still something is happening in the body that is creating unpleasantness and discomfort. And, but unfortunately, no, we don't know the answers as to why that happens in all cases. Are there people who like pain? We hear, about, particularly in sexual know, the pain in the context of sex or pain in the context of, you know, ritual. It's if you have some very intense external stimulation that is negative combined with a lot of positive factors too, it can create, you know, a pleasant experience. So you've got those two systems kind of working in parallel where, you know, your body is experiencing some sort of pain, but it's in the context of, you know, wanting that. So there's the expectation

Starting point is 00:39:27 and the desire for that pain. An example of that would be? If you think about it's the mild to moderate, or some people like high electrical stimulation that can relieve back pain or can just feel good. You know a massage, a deep tissue massage is often described as both very painful but also very pleasant. Well, working out is like that. It often feels very painful to exercise aggressively, but it also feels very good to have done it. Yeah. Part of it is the endorphins that are circulating through our system when we're exercising or just confronting any kind of pain. But studies also show that what happens in our brain is essentially a reprioritization of where our resources are

Starting point is 00:40:20 going. So when we're focused on really strenuous activity, when we're trying to manage pain, all of the thinking and rumination and, you know, all of the internal dialogue is just kind of shut down. Some people describe it as a kind of flow state or part of the runner's high. But what's happening in those moments is our body saying, okay, we need to focus attention on this very strenuous thing that's happening. So there's no room to think about, you know, what you have to do tomorrow or stress about, you know, finances or work. All of that is just kind of quieted, uh, as attention goes to, to the body.

Starting point is 00:41:01 One of the things I've noticed that I find pretty interesting is when you're in pain, if you like burn your finger or you cut yourself and it hurts, distraction is pretty powerful in terms of not sitting there dwelling on the pain that you kind of forget about it, at least temporarily. Absolutely. Distraction is one of the best sources of pain management. If we can focus our attention on something else, it keeps us from cycling into a panic mode. So I think of fear and pain can kind of create a whirlwind of activity in our sympathetic nervous system that just increases the intensity of the pain. So with distraction, we're not going to be engaging in that kind of catastrophizing thinking. We're not going to be thinking, oh my gosh, this hurts so badly, and it's going to hurt worse, and it's going to last forever, and I'm never going to feel better. All of that can really work to just increase the intensity of the pain. So distracting ourselves by focusing on a story or listening to a friend or

Starting point is 00:42:06 even just starting to do something else can kind of stop that escalation and help keep the intensity of the pain more manageable. Which is why lying in bed ruminating about your pain is treacherous. Yes, absolutely. Yes. And yet that's what we often do when we're sick or something hurts and we go lie down and then we think about how much it hurts and that just makes us more anxious about the whole thing. Yeah. It's really, it's just a kind of, I guess, a cruel reality that a lot of times to get out of that, we have to do what in the moment feels like the hardest thing in the world. And that's get up and go for a walk or just do something else. It's incredibly

Starting point is 00:42:52 challenging. But as studies show, when you do that, it does help immensely in managing, especially chronic pain. What else in your research, what else about pain that people might not know that you find really interesting? I think that it's really interesting to see how physical sensation, including pain, does interplay with how we're feeling other emotions. So for example, a colleague of mine did a research study at the New School looking at whether or not people would intentionally give themselves painful electric shocks. And they were given the opportunity to do this when they were just sitting by themselves. And then they also could use giving themselves a large electric shock as a way to deal with other negative content. So for example, if they were shown a really, you know, horrible image, you know, something like an explosion, they were given the

Starting point is 00:43:52 option to shock themselves, to try and reframe it or reappraise it, or to avoid it. And a majority of people at least once opted to use the electrical stimulation as a way to manage negative affect. And so I think that that highlights how, you know, there is no, or rather, it's not really meaningful to distinguish between physical pain and emotional pain because these systems are so interconnected. And it's really about where our attention is going and how we can use intense stimulation to feel differently, you know, in a very real emotional way. You can use that to try and stop ruminating or to try and just shift what you're feeling in the moment. So, yeah, we do use the term pain to describe emotional pain, but what is the

Starting point is 00:44:46 connection? Is it really pain? It is. And pain is whatever people in the moment say it is. So the pain of people say they're in pain, then in that moment, that's what pain is for them. So when we look at how all of these systems are interconnected, it really is at its core, we've got, you know, the central nervous system that's responsible for regulating our resources and making sure that we're alive and making sure that we're eating and that we're drinking water and that we're, you know, staying within the right temperature. All of that is happening all of the time without our conscious awareness. When things go wrong, or when things kind of dip into the

Starting point is 00:45:26 negative territory, that's when we're going to say, oh, something is wrong, I need to try and make it right. And to make it right, we have to figure out what kind of ingredient is needed, whether it's getting something to drink or getting some food. But at the end of the day, if we can better identify what is making us feel bad quickly, then we can feel better also more quickly. So it's the same whether we're feeling bad, you know, because somebody broke up with us, or if we're feeling bad, because, you know, there's a virus that's that's slowly, you know, making us sick. All of those things are going to kind of take our core affect into a negative direction and we'll want to try and figure out how to make it better. Well, you know that sensation you feel like, let's say you have a cold and you just feel

Starting point is 00:46:16 miserable or the flu even, maybe you're just something like that where it doesn't hurt so much as it just feels blech. It just kind of sucks the life out of you. Would you call that pain? Some people might. It depends on the person. If that's the word that they feel would best capture that experience, then it's pain for them. What we feel in any given moment really is this construction of many, many different factors, you know, sensory input is part of it, but so many other things come into play too, including language. So, you know, if a person has a very extensive vocabulary and they've kind of have lots of different words to describe what it feels like when they're sick. They might use

Starting point is 00:47:05 many different words, but some people, if they just kind of describe how they feel as good or bad, as painful or not painful, then they might just say, I'm in pain and not really distinguish it any further. But the research shows that the more vocabulary you have to describe all the different ways that you're feeling, the better able you are to manage them because it does help us find out what is wrong, what is causing this pain. And when we can do that, we can work towards feeling better. Yeah. Well, and when you're in pain, that's the goal.

Starting point is 00:47:43 Margie Kerr has been my guest. She is a sociologist who has been teaching and conducting research on pain since 2004, and she is co-author of the book, Ouch! Why Pain Hurts and Why It Doesn't Have To. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Margie. Whenever you decide you cannot do something, you will always be proven right. Always, according to Dr. Frank Lawless, author of the book, Retrain Your Brain. He says that according to research, the brain acts on goals and intentions you give it.

Starting point is 00:48:20 In the absence of goals, the brain has nothing to act on. Consequently, there will be no progress or any change in behavior. This is sometimes referred to as a self-fulfilling prophecy. You cannot achieve a goal if you don't have one, and you cannot achieve a goal if you don't believe you can. Learning to water ski is an excellent example of this. Before most people begin, they have already convinced themselves they are going to fall down the first several times.

Starting point is 00:48:52 But if you watch someone learn to water ski, they often get up all the way on the first or second try, and then they fall down. Often this is because they surprised themselves. They didn't actually believe they would get up. So to fulfill the prophecy, they just fall down. Eventually, though, if the goal is to get up, they will. And that is something you should know.

Starting point is 00:49:16 I know you know someone who would enjoy this podcast. I just know it. So please tell them about it, share the link, tell them where to listen, and they will thank you. As will I. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love top 10 lists? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney.

Starting point is 00:49:48 The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed. I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle, what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures? You got this.

Starting point is 00:50:12 No, I didn't. Don't believe that. About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada. I'm crying. I'm so sorry. You win that one.

Starting point is 00:50:25 So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the silver lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for the search for the silver lining on Spotify,

Starting point is 00:50:56 Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know - Secrets of the Universe with Neil deGrasse Tyson & Why Pain Hurts

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