Why Pain Could Be Your Best Reward tvdmexonline.com /pain-reward/ TVD
How to connect pleasure and pain! Don’t worry about the pain we are going to analyze in this article. It has nothing to do with masochism. The idea to write about this “pleasant” pain popped up in my head three days ago, while running my last marathon for the year. During 42.195 meters (26.3 miles) or more or less 4 hours, you’ll have time to think about a lot of things. When it’s time to hit the famous “wall,” which by the way always will happen, and the pain in your body reaches the peak of what you can afford, you know that your reward will come if you can get through towards the finish line. Typically you relate to something that hurts when talking about pain, and who would like to be hurt? Your brain sends out “signals” as a prevention and with a “message” to do something. By experience, in most of the cases, you will know what to do in each event of pain. For example, when you’re hungry, if you don’t eat, the hunger can reach a level of pain, and your stomach is screaming out loudly: EAT! When you get a headache, you do something (if knowing what it is) to get rid of the pain, or you take an Aspirin.
Pain As A Reward
Now, let’s take a look at what I would like to call for positive pain. We all have a lot of memories from the time back in school and where you had to do a performance in front of a larger group of people. The first time you did it, most probably you were nervous as never before. That kind of nervousness fulfilled two purposes: 1) You were prepared to do whatever it takes to make an outstanding performance. Often it leads to an unconscious extra training from your side to not leave anything unprepared. 2) You know that the pain caused by the nervousness will get its reward, frequently in the form of an overwhelming ovation from the audience.
Pain before the reward
Dr. Mathieu Roy makes an interesting analysis of the pain issue in an article in the Journal of Neurosciences, March 24, 2010. The test made, shows how we as humans much easier can afford pain if it’s connected to pleasure or rewards.
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