The Brain Can Be Trained to Reduce Pain

There may be a high-tech way to teach people to handle chronic pain, scientists report.

They’re not talking about a sophisticated device that erases pain. Instead, they used medical technology to help patients learn how to develop mental coping devices that would allow them to train their brains to cope with, and reduce their experience of pain.

The strategy is in its early days, so it’s not ready for widespread use. Thorough tests are needed, the researchers note.

They describe their work in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Coping With Pain

The study included 36 healthy students from Stanford University and 12 people in their 30s with chronic pain.

The pain patients had largely had little relief from other pain treatments (including painkillers and counseling).

Those who didn’t have chronic pain received pain exposure through heat applied to the palm of their left hand during the experiment.

The Golden Rules of Processing Pain

Yes Man! An Incredible Movie We Should Learn From

I just came back from the movies. I watched Yes Man! It's an amazing movie that sends a great message to the world. Basically Yes Man! is a about a person who led a miserable life, was talked into going to a Yes Man convention. He made a promise to himself to say yes to whatever life has to offer for him. He actually said yes to whatever he was asked or told! This got him into some trouble and at the same time it had him meeting the love of his life. He learned that he should use the word yes when there's no harm caused from it to himself or to others.

I was very impressed with the idea. Yes! is a powerful word of agreement. It solves and it's the number one word for honesty. In our mean time, we barely use it, we use it only to lie forgetting that we are actually lying to ourselves. Saying Yes to whatever the world offers you is the one chance you have to make the most out of it responsibly. I wish one day we will understand the power of this word and to use it wisely and responsibly. Life offers us abundant opportunities, we take and accept the most of it because you never know which is the perfect one unless you try it. There is not much time for us left to postpone everything to the last moment or to "later" because there might be no later! No one knows when their time ends, so you all better make good use of it and enjoy every moment.