Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey what this stuff to blow your Mind?
Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie and we
Speaker 1: covered the topic of pain before on this podcast. We
Speaker 1: talked about the future of pain pain management. We've stipped
Speaker 1: their toes from the whole discuption of where does pain
Speaker 1: come from? The factor into our experience of reality. In
Speaker 1: this episode, we really want to get into the question
Speaker 1: why do we seek out pain? I mean, we've all
Speaker 1: seen images, We've all seen footage of various h ritualistic
Speaker 1: pain exercises going on around the globe, and a lot
Speaker 1: of us have probably asked why, why would they do that?
Speaker 1: Why are they doing that? Why is that person sticking
Speaker 1: that sharp thing through their body right now completely of
Speaker 1: their own free will? Why why are they engaging in
Speaker 1: self harm? What are they getting out of it? And uh,
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating question. We start breaking it apart when
Speaker 1: you start, when you start looking at the studies that
Speaker 1: have examined the benefits of pain, that the weird crossover
Speaker 1: between pleasure and pain. Um, and so that is what
Speaker 1: we're attempting to tackle in this episode. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention real quick, we are just exploring this topic.
Speaker 1: We are of course, not advocating that anyone undergo feats
Speaker 1: of of pain so that they can achieve some sort
Speaker 1: of transcendence. This is just kind of looking at pain
Speaker 1: and pleasure and the social aspects of why people would
Speaker 1: engage in pain, what sort of benefits, why would they
Speaker 1: do it. It's an exploration of these different questions. Um.
Speaker 1: And the best way to get at it is to
Speaker 1: really look at some of the more historical rituals of pain.
Speaker 1: I say, for me, one of the earliest examples that
Speaker 1: became aware of was Christian flagellation. Uh. And this is
Speaker 1: probably from like seeing the movie The Name of the
Speaker 1: Rose at a real early age, and there's a scene
Speaker 1: in there where the monk is punishing himself by by
Speaker 1: striking his back flashes and uh, you know, and and
Speaker 1: at the time I was too going to really understand
Speaker 1: all that was going on in that scenario, but it
Speaker 1: had an impact on me. Here's somebody that is has
Speaker 1: devoted their life to God and they are inflicting pain
Speaker 1: upon themselves. Well. And of course to tie that even more,
Speaker 1: I grew up in in the Christian church, and so
Speaker 1: I always was confronted to the point of almost not
Speaker 1: seeing it, this image of someone suffering on the cross.
Speaker 1: But but more on that later. Yeah, and my first,
Speaker 1: I guess you would say introduction to mortification of the
Speaker 1: flesh for spiritual reasons was the hair shirt, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, a sort of a signature of some early
Speaker 1: Christian sex who are doing penance for what they perceived
Speaker 1: as a sin. And the idea is that you have
Speaker 1: this shirt that looks maybe great on the outside, but
Speaker 1: on the inside it'sligned with course goat's hair, and it's
Speaker 1: meant to be this fleshly reminder of your transgression. And
Speaker 1: some people even would weave um twigs or thin wires,
Speaker 1: and so this idea that this constant irritation is a
Speaker 1: reminder that you you are not only expressing your faith
Speaker 1: in the transgression that that occurred, but also you're trying
Speaker 1: to train your soul into the right direction with this
Speaker 1: fleshly reminder. There's a great a parody of of this
Speaker 1: kind of a thing. And of course the money Python
Speaker 1: and the Holy Grail, where you see the monks uh
Speaker 1: in a line filing through the village and then they're
Speaker 1: they're chanting something in Latin and then smacking themselves in
Speaker 1: the face with a board. Uh. And but they're they're
Speaker 1: playing on the tradition of the flagelens who uh. In
Speaker 1: the fourteenth century, you know, amid this atmosphere of fear
Speaker 1: and uncertainty, I mean, you had war raging, you had
Speaker 1: black death creeping from door to door, and all the
Speaker 1: while supposedly God's watching on high rather unmoved by all
Speaker 1: of this. So you end up speaking the language of pain.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's what this is all about. It's
Speaker 1: it's about seeking penance for the sin of the world
Speaker 1: two con penance through through physical punishment of the self.
Speaker 1: And so they're walking around, they're punishing themselves and trying
Speaker 1: to sort of take the sins of the world upon them, saying, look,
Speaker 1: if essentially laying out the argument, alright, God, if I
Speaker 1: beat myself enough times, well you may be just lighten
Speaker 1: the load on all of us. Yeah. And there's a
Speaker 1: kind of obedience factor at play there as well as
Speaker 1: this sort of like self rigor. Yeah. And of course
Speaker 1: all of this is taking place within a faith that
Speaker 1: has at its center a man suffering and dying on
Speaker 1: an instrument of torture. So the story of pain, the
Speaker 1: story of suffering, permeates the entire world view. Now you
Speaker 1: can also look at Islam for another example of mortification
Speaker 1: of the flesh. Yes, the Islamic day of Ashura, this
Speaker 1: is a time when some Shia Muslims practice self flagellation
Speaker 1: on the day to commemorate the suffering of a mom Hussaying,
Speaker 1: the grandson of the prophet Moham, the suffering and death
Speaker 1: of the of your mom Hussein um and and so
Speaker 1: you know, this is another example of of of them engaging,
Speaker 1: re enacting, feeling the pain of of of an existing
Speaker 1: story within their faith. Yeah. But I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: about that is that that this metaphorical thing at the
Speaker 1: same time they are bringing the physical body into it.
Speaker 1: But transcendence is certainly at play here, and devotion is
Speaker 1: at play. And then you have various firewalking rituals around
Speaker 1: the world. Indeed, Uh, there are a number of examples
Speaker 1: that we mentioned in our episode on firewalking. So if
Speaker 1: you want a deeper dive into the science of firewalking,
Speaker 1: the trick trickery of firewalking, Uh, that's definitely a podcast
Speaker 1: you should listen to. But again, this. This takes place
Speaker 1: around the world everywhere, from from corporate retreats to the
Speaker 1: Christian firework work walking tradition in northern Greece, the festival
Speaker 1: of Anistonaria. This is when, uh, it's all about the
Speaker 1: eyea that sat Constantine protects them from being burned because
Speaker 1: they they have this faith in them and devotion to him. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's it's essentially walking across hot coals. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: if you can do it without you know, crying out
Speaker 1: or without pain, then surely you must be the most devoted.
Speaker 1: But when in fact we know that we have really
Speaker 1: thick soles on our feet and handsually it's from from
Speaker 1: heat pretty well. But you know, it's again, it gets
Speaker 1: complicated in all of these rituals because there's obviously they're
Speaker 1: gonna be varying degrees of actual pain, but an actual
Speaker 1: physical pain. But layered upon all of that is the
Speaker 1: storytelling and the experience and and some of the scientific
Speaker 1: principles that were going to discuss later on. Now. The
Speaker 1: next is this next example is from a vegetarian festival
Speaker 1: in Thailand, which sounds just doesn't it sound lovely? Like
Speaker 1: I bet that there there's all sorts of like wonderful
Speaker 1: archies and old cheeses you can get and um, but
Speaker 1: the Tie are known for their arties cheese. Yeah, lots
Speaker 1: of tie to eye right now. But no, it does
Speaker 1: sound great because you're thinking of vegetarian tie. I love
Speaker 1: Vegetarian Tide and the kids. It's a little more complicated
Speaker 1: than that, however. Um. The Food Cat Vegetarian Festival is
Speaker 1: is certainly colorful. It's held over a nine day period
Speaker 1: in October, and it celebrates the Chinese community's belief that
Speaker 1: absinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar
Speaker 1: month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good
Speaker 1: health and peace of mind. And amid this, you see firewalking,
Speaker 1: you see body piercing and other acts of self mortification
Speaker 1: that are all about the participants acting as ultimately as
Speaker 1: as mediums for the gods. Yeah, they removed parts to
Speaker 1: their skin, performed blood letting, and pale their cheeks and
Speaker 1: limbs with anything from knives and skewers to antlers and umbrellas.
Speaker 1: Didn't she say that even saw a lamp. Yes, I
Speaker 1: think I saw a lamp in one image, but that
Speaker 1: it's interesting that this is a festival where you see
Speaker 1: the bodily mortification and as well as simply altering your diet,
Speaker 1: again showing that there's a there's a broad spectrum UH
Speaker 1: that entails self punishment and self denial, that they're all
Speaker 1: ultimately kind of shades of the same thing, and again
Speaker 1: wrapped within ritual, wrapped within worldview and belief. And I
Speaker 1: know you want to get hit that big theme, but
Speaker 1: I have to go back to something pretty pedestrian. The
Speaker 1: crowd gets in by throwing firecrackers at the people who
Speaker 1: are doing these actors of mortification of the flesh. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying to add a little little extra, well, a
Speaker 1: little vegas. Yeah, and it's it is important. This will
Speaker 1: come up as we get into some of the studies.
Speaker 1: But not only are the people suffering and we're at
Speaker 1: least engaging in physical pain in these UH rituals important,
Speaker 1: but the people beholding it are important. And we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the the social construct behind this because it's pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: Another festival that you might want to attend is the
Speaker 1: Hindu tithe for some festival. Yes, this is a festival
Speaker 1: celebrity mostly by the Hamil community. On the full moon
Speaker 1: of the Tamil month of Thai that's January February, and
Speaker 1: the festival commemorates the occasion when when Povarty gave murro
Speaker 1: Gun a special spear to defeat the demon Sporadamon so on.
Speaker 1: On this day of the festival, devotes will shave their
Speaker 1: heads and they'll undertake a pilgrimage on a set road
Speaker 1: while engaging in various acts devotion. Notably, they're carrying out
Speaker 1: different types of burdens or cavati UH and UH. In
Speaker 1: its simplest form, this can entail simply carrying a pot
Speaker 1: of milk, but it also can involve mortification of the flesh,
Speaker 1: piercing of the skin, tongue, or cheeks with skewers is
Speaker 1: one of the examples that you you will generally see in
Speaker 1: UH in any photos of this event, certainly the photos
Speaker 1: that tend to you know, make the way around the internet,
Speaker 1: and again people end up looking at these and they're saying,
Speaker 1: who are these people? Why are they doing this thing
Speaker 1: that they do? Uh? And as we're unrolling, we see
Speaker 1: examples of this in there in all sorts of worldviews,
Speaker 1: all sorts of religious rituals around the world. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: less do you judge too quickly. Again, hang on, because
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about some other modern day things
Speaker 1: that we do that are on par with this um.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that's brought up in this
Speaker 1: festival is that sometimes pierced worshippers are sometimes attached to
Speaker 1: ropes um with the hooks that are in their bodies,
Speaker 1: and then they're pulled by other devotes and they are
Speaker 1: suspended in the air from their flesh suspension. Yes, which
Speaker 1: figures pretty prominently in the oky Paw hook suspension ceremony.
Speaker 1: This is a Native American um ritual. Yeah, And this
Speaker 1: is generally takes place in a big and closed tent.
Speaker 1: An individual would have been u would have multiple hooks
Speaker 1: put into their skin because you can't just have one
Speaker 1: because it justs It's kind of the bed of nail scenario, right.
Speaker 1: A bet of one nail means you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: nail sticking in your back. A bet of multiple nails
Speaker 1: means that your your weight is distributed evenly. It's an
Speaker 1: engineering solution basically. Of course, that's not not to say
Speaker 1: that there's there's a lack of pain in the hook
Speaker 1: suspension ceremony. You have physical pain you have this lifting
Speaker 1: off the ground. There's almost ascension motif taking place. And
Speaker 1: then in the individual UH is in the throes of
Speaker 1: this sensation. UM. A number of people out there are
Speaker 1: probably familiar with this or probably having some sort of
Speaker 1: you know, flag go off in their head because Richard
Speaker 1: Harris UH engaged in this in the film UM A
Speaker 1: Man called Horse, which is an old Western and UH
Speaker 1: And I remember catching part of it or seeing an
Speaker 1: ad for it on TBS when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and I remember looking at and thinking, Oh, that's horrible.
Speaker 1: What the what what these people ended up doing to
Speaker 1: this Richard Harris character in this film, I don't want
Speaker 1: to see that at the time, not realizing, not not
Speaker 1: knowing that this was actually, you know, voluntary ritual. That again,
Speaker 1: pain and pleasure are for more complex than we give
Speaker 1: them give them credit. Yeah, the mannd In tribe is
Speaker 1: one of the tribes known UM to practice this, and
Speaker 1: they would suspend young warrior an annual rite of passage
Speaker 1: ceremony that was celebrating the creation of the earth. Now,
Speaker 1: another example that comes to mind, H and this is
Speaker 1: the one that relates back to Christianity. UH. In the Philippines,
Speaker 1: you see get Catholics in the Philippines every year engaging
Speaker 1: in re enactments of the Passion of the Christ. So
Speaker 1: we're talking actual self crucifixion. Well, I say self crucifixion.
Speaker 1: But to engage in cruisiveiicition, you generally need a little help.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a hard thing to do one handed.
Speaker 1: But and in this we're seeing them actually physically with pain,
Speaker 1: reenact the pivotal scene of torture and death at the
Speaker 1: center of the Christian faith. And you know, we're not
Speaker 1: talking hundreds of people. Sometimes I've seen accounts where you're
Speaker 1: generally looking at maybe a dozen two dozen Um Filipino
Speaker 1: is engaging in this is a particular practice. But but
Speaker 1: then people were watching, and by watching, you're also taking
Speaker 1: part in the ritual. Well, and this isn't you far
Speaker 1: away from from some of the feats of physical strength
Speaker 1: or endurance that someone in the gym Rose circus might undergo. Indeed,
Speaker 1: you see people lining up to see physical spectacle, spectacles
Speaker 1: of that that seemed to have suffering involved in them
Speaker 1: all the time. And just within the the whole world
Speaker 1: of the Passion of the Christ, you see plenty of
Speaker 1: reenactments of that UH, throughout the Christian world that don't
Speaker 1: entail actual physical suffering, but they are a reenactment all
Speaker 1: of this event. And really, I mean when you when
Speaker 1: you get down to it, just a reenactment of it
Speaker 1: without the pain and just a physical image of it
Speaker 1: is on some level pretty intense, kind of disturbing. I mean, again,
Speaker 1: you see it enough times you tend to not see
Speaker 1: it anymore, but there it is. Indeed, now, if you
Speaker 1: end up listening to this podcast on the website, I'll
Speaker 1: make sure that I have a gallery that goes up
Speaker 1: that includes some images from some of these festivals and
Speaker 1: a few that we didn't mention, because again, there are
Speaker 1: various rituals, various rights that place around the world that
Speaker 1: involve physical pain. But that does not mean that the
Speaker 1: religious world UH has a monopoly on this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: You see an entire secular tradition of self inflicted or
Speaker 1: at least voluntary UM receiving of pain in the b
Speaker 1: D s M community, or giving pain which also yes, yes,
Speaker 1: the giving and the receiving very much. But it's important
Speaker 1: to note that we're within the b d S b
Speaker 1: D s N theme we're talking about, UH, a consensual arrangement.
Speaker 1: And within b D s M also you see an
Speaker 1: entire spectrum. You see you see just you know, individuals
Speaker 1: lightly spanking one another. You also see individuals engaging in suspension,
Speaker 1: body modification, etcetera. And then also sometimes suspension is winds
Speaker 1: up as part of art, part of performance art. In
Speaker 1: our performance art episode we mentioned the performer Steel Arc,
Speaker 1: and of course he's engaged in various UM thought provoking
Speaker 1: but at times disturbing UM per performances that involve bodily
Speaker 1: modification on some level or another. And he's engaged in
Speaker 1: uh uh in suspension rituals if you will, several times
Speaker 1: in the past. Within b D s M. It's not
Speaker 1: always about sex. As we'll talk about later, there's there's
Speaker 1: um sort of a transcendent component to this. Now to
Speaker 1: talk about probably the most consensual relationship you could have.
Speaker 1: UM one would be your morning workout in yourself right,
Speaker 1: presumably that's consensual, because what's the big thing, right? Feel
Speaker 1: the burn? Right? Yeah, I mean it's we we have
Speaker 1: we whether we're you're going out in the morning and
Speaker 1: doing your morning run, if you're fitting in you know,
Speaker 1: time at the yoga studio, if you're you know, furiously
Speaker 1: doing push ups or pull ups in the afternoon. There's
Speaker 1: always this You're pushing yourself, and you're often pushing yourself
Speaker 1: into an area that is on some level uncomfortable, but
Speaker 1: then also rewarding also at the time, even kind of
Speaker 1: physical rewarding, as opposed to just after the fact. Uh So,
Speaker 1: if nothing else, think to your own exercise routine when
Speaker 1: we're discussing all of this, because because you see shadows
Speaker 1: of a lot of it just in that. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: pushing the envelope of of your abilities does put you
Speaker 1: sometimes into that pain area. But there's a certain kind
Speaker 1: of pleasure in that. Alright, we're gonna take a quick break,
Speaker 1: and when we get back, we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about the crossover with pain and pleasure. All Right, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're discussing pain does in a pain. We've already laid
Speaker 1: out a number of examples. Uh some of which are
Speaker 1: are probably exotic to you, and then some of which
Speaker 1: are right down home and in your living room. And
Speaker 1: in all this, I also keep thinking of, what's that
Speaker 1: awful song that had that line hurts so good, Make
Speaker 1: it hurt so good, John Sugar, that's so good? Come
Speaker 1: that's so good. That was the share version, the share
Speaker 1: versions of one I'm thinking of. But that's that lyric
Speaker 1: is great because at first it seems the paradoxical, Right,
Speaker 1: hurt so good? How can it hurt so good? Hurt
Speaker 1: is bad. It's kind of like that line in Roadhouse
Speaker 1: where Patrick Swayzy says, pain don't hurt? How could pain
Speaker 1: not hurt? Paint hurt? Pain is hurt. Pain. This is
Speaker 1: what it's doing. What are you talking about, Soyzy? But
Speaker 1: wow a Roadhouse reference? Yeah, Roadhouse is a isn't its
Speaker 1: way a great film? I've seen it multiple times? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean because they're not only bouncers, they're bouncer philosophers. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of a good example of how your
Speaker 1: a magdala is also doing double duty. Right, it's a
Speaker 1: bouncer of your emotions and a philosophizer of your emotions.
Speaker 1: Because the thing that we know is that the amgdala
Speaker 1: processes both pain physically and emotionally, and also processes other
Speaker 1: emotions like pleasure and fear and joy. So it would
Speaker 1: make sense that the perception of whether it's from like
Speaker 1: social rejection or whether it's from an injury to your
Speaker 1: flesh would be bound up in one another. Not to
Speaker 1: mention the other things that we feel in life. Indeed,
Speaker 1: back in two thousand two is an example this. Harvard
Speaker 1: researchers UH conducted an experiment with a heated the hands
Speaker 1: of eight volunteers to the point of pain while they
Speaker 1: underwent brain scans, and the scan showed activity not only
Speaker 1: in brain regions typically associated with pain, but also in
Speaker 1: those devoted to enjoying pleasurable things like food, drugs, and sects.
Speaker 1: So there we see that crossover, and this leads us
Speaker 1: next to a substance we're always talking about when it
Speaker 1: comes to human behavior and human desires and our reward system,
Speaker 1: and that is of course dopamine. Yeah, Because what we
Speaker 1: have is we've got this thing called the nucleus that
Speaker 1: commins and it's a neural network in the middle of
Speaker 1: the brain. It's the engine of the reward response, which
Speaker 1: deals a lot in dopamine. And in a study led
Speaker 1: by John Levine at the University of San Francisco, it
Speaker 1: was determined that the reward way activates pain relief through
Speaker 1: the release of both opioids, which is a morphine like
Speaker 1: drug produced by the body and dopamine, which is that
Speaker 1: chemical messenger whose effects can be mimicked by amphetamine and cocaine.
Speaker 1: That's why that's so hard to beat addiction. So the
Speaker 1: findings overturned this long held assumption that the release of
Speaker 1: dopamine and the nucleus cucumbens is associated only with positive experiences.
Speaker 1: Here we see examples of it being released in a
Speaker 1: pain context. Now, can bear in mind that we're talking
Speaker 1: about rituals in a lot of these cases as well,
Speaker 1: and rituals in and of themselves can be arousing, and
Speaker 1: his rituals become more arousing, they can trigger hormones and
Speaker 1: stimulate the reward system of the brain. Uh. This, according
Speaker 1: to anthropologist dmitri Zygolattis, can cause sensations such as pain
Speaker 1: and fear to transform into pleasural experiences through a spike
Speaker 1: in the neurotransmitter dopamine, in an increase in neuropeptides called endorphins,
Speaker 1: which bind the brains opiate receptors and produce the same
Speaker 1: soothing euphoria felt by a marathon runner. Again, we come
Speaker 1: back to exercise, we come around to the runners high. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good way to contextualize this, Like why would
Speaker 1: dopamine be released when I'm experiencing pain right, well, because
Speaker 1: it because these sort of things are crossed over in
Speaker 1: one another in the brain, and because this is very
Speaker 1: much learned behavior, it doesn't matter what the thing is
Speaker 1: that makes the dopamine happen. You're going to go to
Speaker 1: the thing. If it becomes routinized enough. It could be food,
Speaker 1: it could be pain, and that is why it could
Speaker 1: hurt so good. But another way that it could hurt
Speaker 1: so good is if it doesn't hurt as much as
Speaker 1: you expected it to hurt. This is pretty interesting, according
Speaker 1: to a two thousand thirteen study from the University of Oslo,
Speaker 1: of pain that hits less severely than expected, as in,
Speaker 1: you didn't spank me nearly as hard as I thought
Speaker 1: you would. That can give us a rush of release
Speaker 1: or even something like pleasure, which is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about it in the context of
Speaker 1: Adel and that's thanks to knowl, our producer, because he
Speaker 1: had brought up that her song Somebody Like You is
Speaker 1: a real not in addition to it being a real
Speaker 1: tear jerker for people, that it has this thing that
Speaker 1: it's doing and it's creating a sort of I don't
Speaker 1: know if I would call it pain, but maybe metaphorical
Speaker 1: pain in the brain. In other words, it has this
Speaker 1: highly dismant chord directly on that you lyric, So somebody
Speaker 1: like you and she messes with that with that you lyric.
Speaker 1: And the reason why this is problematic for the brain
Speaker 1: is because the brain likes a nice pattern and up
Speaker 1: until then, there's been this pattern that it can follow
Speaker 1: along with. But just that one little change and that
Speaker 1: you lyric creates this f zone. This this this friction
Speaker 1: in the brain, and that's when you see the um
Speaker 1: the moment before dopamine is released in the brain because
Speaker 1: as soon as that friction gets resolved within then the
Speaker 1: next chord, which then follows back into a pattern, the
Speaker 1: brain is almost like, oh, that didn't feel as bad
Speaker 1: as I thought it was going to I was. And
Speaker 1: this is just in music and on the symbolic level.
Speaker 1: So that's why I bring it up, because when we're
Speaker 1: talking about perceptions of discomfort in pain, we're meeting them
Speaker 1: in different scenarios in our life, even in songs. I
Speaker 1: think this is a great point bringing up the pattern
Speaker 1: recognition because, uh, from what I've I've read a lot
Speaker 1: of these B D s M situations and we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the lower end of the spectrum, not
Speaker 1: hanging from hooks. But you know, it's not a situation
Speaker 1: where someone says, all right, spank me eight times, and
Speaker 1: then someone spanks them eight times as hard as they can.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be varying levels of pain, varying level of sensation,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes pleasurable and painful. They're going on there,
Speaker 1: and the brain inevitably of the person receiving these sensations,
Speaker 1: they're gonna inevitably try to identify the patterns and find
Speaker 1: the patterns in this, uh, this this chorus of pain
Speaker 1: and pleasure that they are receiving, which kind of gets
Speaker 1: us into this next section and which we talk about
Speaker 1: the community of pain because you know, obviously a person
Speaker 1: can do this, can engage in acts of pain unto themselves.
Speaker 1: But we see so many different scenarios, not just in
Speaker 1: historical context, in which people will engage in this kind
Speaker 1: of ritual as a sort of bonding experience. And this
Speaker 1: we have to refer to an excellent article by anthropologist
Speaker 1: Dmitries like a Lattis we mentioned earlier, is an article
Speaker 1: Trial by Fire from Firewalking to the Ice Bucket Challenge,
Speaker 1: Ritual pain and suffering forge intense social bonds, and this
Speaker 1: was published online in the excellent Eon magazine. UM. According
Speaker 1: to Zagats, cognitive dissonance theory holds that when we uh,
Speaker 1: when the cost or the effort spent in pursuing a
Speaker 1: goal is disproportionately higher than its reward. Uh, this this
Speaker 1: this dissonance that we feel this uh, this this gap
Speaker 1: between the cost and the and the and the product.
Speaker 1: Out of that, we end up with this like an
Speaker 1: area of mental stress. Right. We No one wants to
Speaker 1: to pay more for a product than it's worth. No
Speaker 1: one wants to suffer for something that's ultimately not worth suffering.
Speaker 1: So what do you do? Your mind is reorganizes everything
Speaker 1: and ends up engaging in what they call effort justification.
Speaker 1: So it's it's like if someone says, hey, that roared
Speaker 1: you got you really had to go through hell to
Speaker 1: get it? Was it worth it? Of course it was
Speaker 1: worth it, because I I There's no way I did
Speaker 1: all of that for nothing. There's no way that that
Speaker 1: badge is not worth all the effort I put into it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A good example of this again brought to us by
Speaker 1: to meet j Zic Lattis is quote. In a classic
Speaker 1: psychology experiment conducted in nineteen fifty nine, the psychologist Elliott
Speaker 1: Aaronson of Stanford and Jensen Mills of the United States
Speaker 1: Army found that people who had to go through a
Speaker 1: highly embarrassing situation in order to join a discussion group
Speaker 1: subsequently reported liking the group more. And a follow up
Speaker 1: study researchers used electric shocks and found that those who
Speaker 1: received severe shocks before entering the group valued their membership
Speaker 1: more than those who received merely mild ones. Very interesting,
Speaker 1: and that that instantly brings to mind various rights of
Speaker 1: passage that exists out there, from physically painful rights of
Speaker 1: passages that involve bodily modification to even uh, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the examples of hazing out there in university settings.
Speaker 1: That's what I was just thinking. This is ritual abuse,
Speaker 1: this practice, and in fraternities have what they call hell week, right,
Speaker 1: that's when you are indoctrinated into this group. And we're
Speaker 1: talking about sexual abuse. In some cases, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the forced consumption of mind altering drugs and alcohol and
Speaker 1: during feats of strength and pain like boiling hot water
Speaker 1: on the back right, um, drinking pitchers of water until
Speaker 1: your brain swells. So here you see a very communal aspect,
Speaker 1: and in particularly through the lens of fraternity, you see
Speaker 1: how it becomes that much more important that you gain
Speaker 1: that membership because you put your body in mind on
Speaker 1: the line. You know. In there perhaps softer examples of
Speaker 1: this too when you see uh see, like corporate retreats,
Speaker 1: people go on go out on this retreat, they go
Speaker 1: through certain experiences that are probably not all that painful,
Speaker 1: but it's the community aspect of it. It's the price
Speaker 1: that you're paying for it. Um does non trust falls? Um?
Speaker 1: You know. Also arguably boot camp in a military question,
Speaker 1: and you're going through what is bile accounts, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a physically and emotionally demanding time, but that you're supposed
Speaker 1: to emerge from that at the other end as a
Speaker 1: more cohesive group. Well, I think that's why those types
Speaker 1: of precise classes are so popular in a sense, because
Speaker 1: you do get that that kind of bonding and nobody
Speaker 1: is going at the end of the day say, well,
Speaker 1: they really kind of beat the heart of you. In
Speaker 1: that boot camp class that you took at the park
Speaker 1: was it really worth it. Do you feel better? Of
Speaker 1: course I feel better, because there's no way that I
Speaker 1: got up early to suffer like that for a month
Speaker 1: if I don't feel great now and look at these
Speaker 1: guns now. Another item that it's like a lot of
Speaker 1: stub brings up is the idea of collective effervescence. And
Speaker 1: this comes to us from a French sociologist, Emil Durkheim,
Speaker 1: who argued in elementary forms of religious life, that's the
Speaker 1: popular publication that the collective performance of ritual generates a
Speaker 1: kind of electricity. So this is you know, this, this shock,
Speaker 1: this this ecstatic state of shared excitement. Uh, that just
Speaker 1: kind of moves through a group of people that are
Speaker 1: engaged in a ritual or even in a I mean
Speaker 1: any kind of ritualistic endeavor. So this could be a
Speaker 1: bunch of people singing a them at the local church.
Speaker 1: This could be people engaging in a in the burning
Speaker 1: of an effigy at a at a burning man type event,
Speaker 1: or even engaging in icebreakers at that corporate retreat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, it's about cooperation.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about how this is like one of
Speaker 1: the cornerstones of humanity that's allowed us to be so
Speaker 1: successful as a species. This idea that we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna sign on this dotted line of the social contract
Speaker 1: and say, yes, we'll cooperate. When we get into a
Speaker 1: gym together, we will all stomp our feet together, and
Speaker 1: we will cheer for the team, and we will engage
Speaker 1: in this as a group, and we'll get together as
Speaker 1: a group. Yeah, we're gonna align our emotional states and
Speaker 1: no matter what our differences are, we can agree on
Speaker 1: maybe at least one thing. That Jesus guy is pretty good,
Speaker 1: that that Muhammed guy is pretty good. Jesus is just
Speaker 1: all that. The idea being that within any kind of
Speaker 1: a community that is engaged in since ritualistic endeavor, you're
Speaker 1: gonna see emotional states align. You're gonna there's gonna be
Speaker 1: this core, this uh, the center of the wheel, that
Speaker 1: that everyone is a tune too. Now you might be thinking, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I get it. People get together, they do things, they
Speaker 1: sync up. But it seems a little like WHOI that
Speaker 1: the pain could be such a ritualized collective event that
Speaker 1: people would willingly submit themselves to this. And we have
Speaker 1: a little study that might underscore the fact that yes,
Speaker 1: people will do this. Yeah. And this one this was
Speaker 1: actually one that zaglots Uh conducted himself, carrying out at
Speaker 1: a during taipoos um Uh, which is we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: Of course uh. And of course it's directly related to cavati,
Speaker 1: those burdens that people take on themselves. This was the festival,
Speaker 1: not the vegetarian festivals, but the other one, he said.
Speaker 1: They He found that those who had participated in the
Speaker 1: extreme rituals, again the extreme Cavatis, gave twice as much
Speaker 1: as those who had taken part in collective pair. He
Speaker 1: found that the same high levels of generosity among those
Speaker 1: who had themselves gone through the painful activities of the
Speaker 1: of the Cavati and those who had merely followed the
Speaker 1: procession without engaging in any of this bodily mortification. Just
Speaker 1: as expected, the painful ritual boosted pro social behavior in
Speaker 1: the participants. And then in terms of having that steak
Speaker 1: in the process right or stack in your body, maybe
Speaker 1: there's something called the martyrdom effect. And uh. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, the psychologist Christopher olive Ola of the
Speaker 1: University of Warwick and Elder Shephear of Princeton demonstrated what
Speaker 1: is known as this martyrdom effect. And what they had
Speaker 1: is they had a series of experiments in which they
Speaker 1: asked participants to raise money for various charities and found
Speaker 1: that people donated more when they expected to suffer more,
Speaker 1: for example, running five miles versus just attending a lovely picnic,
Speaker 1: or how about dumping a bucket of cold water on
Speaker 1: their head? Right, that sounds odd? What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Who would do that? Who would do that? Well? A
Speaker 1: lot of people apparently, because uh, the the ALS Association
Speaker 1: of course, raised million dollars millions to help fight the
Speaker 1: A L S. And I assume everyone is familiar with
Speaker 1: this at this point. But if you're not, if somehow
Speaker 1: you missed out on the social media explosion that was
Speaker 1: the ALS ice bucket challenge, was individuals dumping or having
Speaker 1: a bucket of chilling ice water or ice dumped on
Speaker 1: their head. And then they challenge other people. And if
Speaker 1: you're honoring the whole idea of it, you're supposed to
Speaker 1: then go make a donation to the A L S.
Speaker 1: A L S Association, be it instead of taking dumping
Speaker 1: ice on your head or as part of dumping ice
Speaker 1: in your What's interesting about that is that I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody ever intended this, but every single one of
Speaker 1: those videos is a kind of data point in this
Speaker 1: pain pleasure um experiment right of humanity, and which you
Speaker 1: do see people emerge on the other side giddy, giddy,
Speaker 1: and and evidently more likely to donate either if you.
Speaker 1: And that goes for people that are partaking in the
Speaker 1: ritual and presumably those who are who are actually just
Speaker 1: you know, on the other end of the computer watching
Speaker 1: some celebrity dumped dump ice on their head. And key
Speaker 1: to this, perhaps this is this idea that you are
Speaker 1: the participant, you are the hero and this story. So
Speaker 1: storytelling really factors into this. And when we get back,
Speaker 1: we're going to delve into it. All right, we are back.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why I think that ice
Speaker 1: bucket challenge is really so successful is it is storytelling
Speaker 1: at its finest and quickest, and it's this cultural meme
Speaker 1: that has been passed around and it's the thing that
Speaker 1: everybody can gather around and say, yeah, I experience that.
Speaker 1: I didn't experience it with that person in Arkansas, but
Speaker 1: I you know, directly, but we we both had the
Speaker 1: same sort of thing, that ice cold moment and that
Speaker 1: rush of pleasure and experiencing. So, for instance, you might
Speaker 1: never know exactly what it's like to be David Lynch,
Speaker 1: but David Lynch has experienced the ice bucket challenge. David
Speaker 1: Lynch knows what it's like ritually have that the ice
Speaker 1: raised above his head and then dumped upon him. And
Speaker 1: you can experience that too and be a part of
Speaker 1: the same story. David Lynch and Pamela Anderson have something
Speaker 1: in common, is what I'm saying. It's pretty great. It's
Speaker 1: just amazing how much depth there is to something that
Speaker 1: at at at surface level, just seems like people doing
Speaker 1: a silly thing for a good cause. Now, in when
Speaker 1: I was looking this up right before we did the podcast,
Speaker 1: I was just going in to see what the latest
Speaker 1: stats were about how much money was raised for the cause.
Speaker 1: I found some stories about the new ice bucket challenge
Speaker 1: or something that is that is brought up is possibly
Speaker 1: the new ice spukeet challenge, and that is the hashtag
Speaker 1: wake up call that is being uh that's being rolled
Speaker 1: out by UNI Stuff. Raised money for UNI Stuff, so
Speaker 1: again for a good cause. But the idea here is
Speaker 1: that people, especially celebrities, end up sharing pictures of themselves
Speaker 1: when they first wake up in the morning, which on
Speaker 1: the surface here sounds very out of keeping with the
Speaker 1: with everything that makes the ice bucket challenge work right,
Speaker 1: because there's nothing painful about it. I guess the idea
Speaker 1: is that it could be humiliating or or or humanizing.
Speaker 1: Maybe that it's knocking you down a peg, and so
Speaker 1: you're you're suffering at the very shallow end of the
Speaker 1: suffering pool, especially if you're Naomi Campbell and you have
Speaker 1: this picture of yourself just waking up, looks like a magazine,
Speaker 1: your hair just perfectly spread over the pillow, and this
Speaker 1: sort of morning do settled upon your your face. Um,
Speaker 1: it was disgusting. I was like I was, now, I
Speaker 1: feel like there's a morning Naomi Campbell phobia. It was terrible.
Speaker 1: I can't believe she did it. It will it will
Speaker 1: be interesting to watch it and see how this particular hashtag,
Speaker 1: this particular fundraising social media cause. Don't don't look at her.
Speaker 1: She looks like the sea hag in The Little Mermaid,
Speaker 1: the the original. Um, I'm making fun because of course
Speaker 1: she looked like a supermodel waking up, but yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean there's this idea that you know, she might be
Speaker 1: humiliating herself and submitting herself to this collective ritual. And
Speaker 1: the ritual is important, and it is worth against stressing
Speaker 1: that in all these religious rituals and some of the
Speaker 1: secular ones, one is re enacting or engaging in a
Speaker 1: story of pain, and they're they're making the story true
Speaker 1: through pain. I mean, their pain becomes a testament to
Speaker 1: its reality, you know. And thinking about this, I come
Speaker 1: back to two again, that central Christian image of Jesus
Speaker 1: on the cross, and I ran across something interesting recently,
Speaker 1: and I blogged about this on Stuff to Play your
Speaker 1: mind icon So maybe some of you saw it. But
Speaker 1: if you look back to uh, the earlier tradition, the
Speaker 1: early artistic tradition of of of representing Jesus on the cross,
Speaker 1: you see stuff like uh Alberto Petos eight seven, christis triumphants,
Speaker 1: which shows you this, uh uh, this this Christ on
Speaker 1: the cross with this serene kind of doughty look in
Speaker 1: his eyes like this is this does not look like
Speaker 1: a man who is suffering. This looks like a man
Speaker 1: who is above pain. This looks like a God that
Speaker 1: is above human suffering. Yeah, I guess, but this was
Speaker 1: actually the predominant style prior to the thirteenth century, after
Speaker 1: which it becomes increasingly proper to depict Christ is not
Speaker 1: only undergoing physical pain, but suffering physical pain like you
Speaker 1: and me. And you see one of the more just
Speaker 1: fantastic examples of this tradition in um the Christ of
Speaker 1: Matthias Gruenwald's Eisenham altarpiece. Uh And in this one, we
Speaker 1: see a God that is not only suffering, but appears
Speaker 1: to be diseased. Uh and and I go into the
Speaker 1: details for that in the in the blog post include
Speaker 1: a link on this podcast episode. But you see a
Speaker 1: vision of Christ that is intensely suffering, diseased even uh
Speaker 1: and and But but in all of it is engaging
Speaker 1: in the kind of physical suffering that humans can relate to.
Speaker 1: Because you know, imagine yourself, you're in this uh you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're poor, You're in a medieval town. There's
Speaker 1: there's black death knocking on the door, there's there's warfare raging.
Speaker 1: Which which image can you relate to? Which image can
Speaker 1: you connect with and engage in the story, And that,
Speaker 1: of course would be the Christ that is suffering, the
Speaker 1: Christ that actually feels pain like you feel pain. Well,
Speaker 1: and I would uh wagered about that. Every single story
Speaker 1: that's ever been written, there is an element of suffering,
Speaker 1: wasn't it? Because that is you cannot have a story
Speaker 1: without suffering. That is the human experience. Life is suffering.
Speaker 1: And uh and nobody wants to see a movie read
Speaker 1: a book about an individual has all their dreams come true.
Speaker 1: That is not a story. That is just that's just
Speaker 1: a pipe dream. We want to see characters who are challenged,
Speaker 1: characters who suffer, characters. I mean, it's ultimately more about
Speaker 1: what people try to do than what they actually succeed
Speaker 1: in doing. Even yogaba gabba narratives have suffering in them.
Speaker 1: It's true. Somebody gets bit and you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: do that. One who's always sad and is always suffering.
Speaker 1: Occasionally they cheer him up, but then he returns to
Speaker 1: doing this uh epitome of of childhood suffering. And maybe
Speaker 1: Gobol decides to take up ritualistic pain in order to
Speaker 1: try to to uh fill himself with a sense of
Speaker 1: control over his destiny. That's right, I mean, there's this
Speaker 1: this whole idea of of control versus chaos, which reminds
Speaker 1: us of the episode that we did on flow state,
Speaker 1: particularly where, particularly if you're playing a game right, you're
Speaker 1: engaging in some sort of limited version of reality in
Speaker 1: which they're set rules and you can actually take full
Speaker 1: command end of the situation that it's it's challenging enough
Speaker 1: to engage you, but not to challenging, not so much
Speaker 1: that you're frustrated. And so you can see cases where
Speaker 1: UH ritual allows us to partake in this and engage
Speaker 1: in a flow state. Well, and I would see this
Speaker 1: particularly in B D S M right, because in that sense,
Speaker 1: you're creating this sort of pushing your outer limits within
Speaker 1: something that's not going to necessarily break you. Yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: I mean there are rules, there are limits, and it's
Speaker 1: about maybe edging towards those limits, but not surpassing them.
Speaker 1: That's why it's you know, a a badious in dungeon
Speaker 1: is not an actual, you know, stereotypical medieval dungeon where
Speaker 1: people are tortured. It's a it's a consensual exploration of
Speaker 1: the senses, if you will. Rickshaw a rickshaw like a
Speaker 1: rick shaw cart. That was my safe word. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: I was just that's totally gonna get cut out right, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I kind of made me try to picture
Speaker 1: a rickshaw art environment within a BDS club. Like there's
Speaker 1: so many things that are a thing it would not surprise.
Speaker 1: All Right, let's talk about how this might translate to
Speaker 1: altered states any because this is the motif, right, you
Speaker 1: have someone engaging in sort of ritualistic pain, especially within
Speaker 1: a religious scenario, and they are achieving some sort of
Speaker 1: enlightenment to some sort of transcendence or you know, at
Speaker 1: least they're they're they're they're they're bringing themselves to tears
Speaker 1: not out of pain, but out of relief, out of
Speaker 1: out of forgiveness. Eve. Yeah, I mean if you're thinking
Speaker 1: about acts of self flagilation, right and you know, you
Speaker 1: see it, you understand the metaphor behind it, but what
Speaker 1: sort of why would there be a kind of transcendence here?
Speaker 1: And it turns out that, um, what's happening in the
Speaker 1: brain really translates to a meditative experience. Yeah, as as
Speaker 1: far as forgiveness through pain goes, there's a fantastic two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven study. Uh, this was a conducted by psychological
Speaker 1: scientists brought question who just has a fabulous name, I
Speaker 1: want to say uh, from the University of Queensland, Australia,
Speaker 1: and he set out to explore this idea. Why why
Speaker 1: would striking yourself with a lash make you feel better
Speaker 1: about your your transgressions? So Bastion's team regruited young male
Speaker 1: and female test subjects under the guise of a mental
Speaker 1: and physical acuity study. The researchers asked the test subjects
Speaker 1: to write a personal essay about a time in which
Speaker 1: they ostracize someone, and the aim here was to make
Speaker 1: this part of these participants in the study UH feel
Speaker 1: guilty or immoral. Meanwhile, the control group just wrote personal
Speaker 1: essays about you know whatever, some sort of routine memory
Speaker 1: that wasn't going to make them feel guilty. The researchers
Speaker 1: then instructed both immoral volunteers and the controls to hold
Speaker 1: their hands in a bucket of ice water for as
Speaker 1: long as they could stand it. Others dipped their hand
Speaker 1: in a soothing bucket of warm water. So the question
Speaker 1: here that the study was posing would immoral test subjects
Speaker 1: punish themselves with longer dips in the water in the
Speaker 1: cold to rather uh? And would they feel better afterwards?
Speaker 1: And the answer is yes on both counts. Those who
Speaker 1: were primed to feel shame again by those personal essays
Speaker 1: of ostracizing others um when they dip their their hands
Speaker 1: in the cold water, they held it for longer durations,
Speaker 1: and afterwards they described the dip as more painful and
Speaker 1: express reduced feelings of guilt afterwards. So Bastion's argument, and
Speaker 1: ultimately the argument of the study here, uh, is that
Speaker 1: is that this illustrates our culturally altered understanding of pain.
Speaker 1: We've come to process it not only as negative environmental feedback,
Speaker 1: but also as justice and punishment. So on a psychological level,
Speaker 1: a little bit of a self inflicted pain rebalances the
Speaker 1: scales that we've managed to unbalance in our lives well.
Speaker 1: And I think that's interesting because that's where someone is
Speaker 1: able to achieve some sort of quiescence, right, some sort
Speaker 1: of tranquility, even if it's just fleeting. And we've talked
Speaker 1: about this before or in context of meditation or yoga,
Speaker 1: is that there's this part of the brain called the
Speaker 1: default mode network, and it's the midline chatter that you
Speaker 1: hear in your head that's very involved with me me me, me,
Speaker 1: me me right, And in order to dim the lights
Speaker 1: on that, you've got to engage in something like meditation
Speaker 1: or something that takes you outside of yourself, which is
Speaker 1: where something like B D S sound comes into because
Speaker 1: that involves something called the Dorso lateral network, which is
Speaker 1: very closely intertwined with this default mode network. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: this part of the brain is involved in distinguishing self
Speaker 1: from other h and it is also involved in the
Speaker 1: out of body experiences. A two thousand fourteen study from
Speaker 1: Northern Illinois University linked sado masochism to altered states of
Speaker 1: mind UH in keeping with those achieved through yoga or meditation.
Speaker 1: The research has administered cognitive test to S and N
Speaker 1: participant following a switching scene, and based on the findings,
Speaker 1: they suspect that pain alters blood foe in the brain,
Speaker 1: particularly to that Doris lateral prefrontal cortex, which again plays
Speaker 1: this essential role in our ability to distinguish self from others. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, intense pain in this control setting may
Speaker 1: result in a feeling of oneness with humanity or even
Speaker 1: the universe, which again brings to mind these these hook
Speaker 1: suspension uh ceremonies in which one is is elevated, which
Speaker 1: one that where one is rising up UM, you know,
Speaker 1: with help from the hooks UM I was. I was
Speaker 1: looking around for for feedback from UM suspension participants on this,
Speaker 1: and I found a quote from Alan Faulkner, who's the
Speaker 1: founder of PSD, the first suspension group and often held
Speaker 1: up as the father of modern suspension. He said, if
Speaker 1: life had a dial to adjust the volume, suspension has
Speaker 1: a way of accessing this invisible knob and turning it down.
Speaker 1: We which is which it first makes seem paradoxical, right,
Speaker 1: because you're thinking, what could be a more intense experience
Speaker 1: of life been hanging from a hook? Right? You think, oh,
Speaker 1: these people are just adrenaline junkies. They just want to
Speaker 1: just go in there and add hang from a hook.
Speaker 1: But here's this guy talking about how hanging from these
Speaker 1: hooks suspended above the ground was a way of turning
Speaker 1: everything down, of of of actually making the rest of
Speaker 1: his life sort of fade into the background. Well, this
Speaker 1: calls back to the man and tribe that we were
Speaker 1: talking about that also practiced suspension, and the idea was
Speaker 1: that not only was it just the celebration and this
Speaker 1: UM this sort of ritual and looking at how Earth
Speaker 1: was created, um, but it was this way of those
Speaker 1: participants to not only test their metal, but clear their
Speaker 1: minds in order for visions to come to them for
Speaker 1: a sort of um, a kind of grace to settle
Speaker 1: upon their brains. So there you have it, the zen
Speaker 1: of pain, or at least our exploration of this idea
Speaker 1: of pain and pleasure mixing together of of pain, uh
Speaker 1: in a controlled environment leading to uh to to some
Speaker 1: level of transcendence. UH. It's a it's a powerful topic.
Speaker 1: And again when you see shadows off throughout human culture,
Speaker 1: throughout religious traditions and secular traditions as well. And again
Speaker 1: we want to underline, UH, don't go out and hurt
Speaker 1: yourself because you listen to this podcast. UM, you know
Speaker 1: we're not advocating uh self harm in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. But again, it's something we just see throughout
Speaker 1: human culture. Yeah, this is not a celebration of pain.
Speaker 1: This is just an exploration of the tropes that we
Speaker 1: continue to see in society. And it's a fascinating topic.
Speaker 1: And UH, we certainly do not want to scoot anything
Speaker 1: like say, chronic pain or self inflicted pain to the
Speaker 1: side here. Those are very important topics. And they deserve
Speaker 1: uh their own time. But again, this is just looking
Speaker 1: at at pain in a different way. Indeed, and if
Speaker 1: you want to listen to a discussion that goes more
Speaker 1: into the subject of chronic pain, do check out our
Speaker 1: past episode at the Future of Pain. You'll find that
Speaker 1: in other past episodes of the podcast at stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your Mind dot com it's the mothers Stiffest where
Speaker 1: you'll find all of our podcast episodes are videos glog
Speaker 1: post as well. And if you have any thoughts on this,
Speaker 1: if you have other examples that we missed of this
Speaker 1: sort of like ritual pain that that we sometimes submit
Speaker 1: ourselves to, please send us your thoughts via email and
Speaker 1: you can send them to blow the Mind how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com