Why Things Hurt

As I say on my website and to every person who comes to my office, I don’t believe in painful massages. Pain is not therapeutic. Your body does not respond to pain by saying, “Oh, that was nice! Let’s relax now.” Pain is not experienced in the tissues, but rather is a feeling created by your brain for the purpose of telling you that something is wrong (such as the application of too much pressure during a massage). As Lorimer Mosely (a clinical neuroscientist and pain researcher) says in this Tedx Talk, “if we keep running the neurons (brain cells) that produce pain, they get better at producing pain. They become more and more sensitive, so they need a smaller and smaller influence.” So if you’re one of those people who’s used to really deep and painful massages and is wondering why you never seem to feel better…now you know why. If you’re interested in learning a little more about why things hurt, I recommend watching that Tedx Talk.