How does your brain respond to pain? The answer may surprise you
This video, part of the TED Ed educational series, will teach you about the different ways the human brain responds to pain. Don't worry, it won't hurt.
How does your brain handle pain? That's the question educator Karen D. Davis set out to answer in her TED Ed educational video, an animated short that shows just how differently our brains respond to painful stimuli.
In the initial segment, the narrator asks viewers to imagine they were working on a puzzle that under normal circumstances takes about 10 minutes, and asks a simple question: "Would it take longer to complete the puzzle if you received constant electric shocks to your hand?"
The answer, shockingly (as it were), depends on how your body reacts to pain. Some are distracted by pain, and it will undoubtedly take them longer to do the puzzle while experiencing it. But others use tasks as a distraction from pain, and experiencing physical discomfort could actually make them work faster, or not affect their time at all.
And that's just one of the many painful facts you'll learn after watching this video. It's only about five minutes long, which shouldn't be too, um, painful for you to sit through.
(Via Laughing Squid)