Jun 09 2008
What Pain Really Means
Pain means different things depending on what meaning of the question you are going to answer.
What Pain Means by Definition
According to Merriam-Webster Online, pain is “usually localized physical suffering associated with bodily disorder (as a disease or an injury); also: a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leading to evasive action b: acute mental or emotional distress or suffering”.
What Pain Means to the Body
Pain is a very good thing. It was designed to give you the ability to know when you’ve come to harm, and for you to react. It can mean that you pull your hand away from the hot stove to prevent further harm, or you rub the hurt area so that the body can stimulate its natural painkillers. Pain tells you that you are injured, that you are about to be injured, or that you need to slow down and rest. Either of these is a trigger for you to do something and without this trigger response more harm can come to the body. Chronic pain means that these messages from the brain can be generated far after the beginning stimulus is gone.
What Pain Means to the Person
Pain is very subjective in individuals. One may think that getting a tattoo is very pain while another finds it not to bother. Each body will react differently to pain depending on key factors. How we are brought up, our fears and even things like gender can mean we will see pain differently. Pain is a symptom, a reaction, an emotion. It is a variable that can only be answered depending on who you ask.
