Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Controlling Pain
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Controlling Pain
What if your brain could naturally control pain? Professor Irene Tracey and her colleagues are trying to unlock the natural mechanisms in the brain that limit the amount of pain we feel.
We hear about how children learning judo are taught special techniques and from ex-marine Chris Shirley who ran a marathon carrying a 45kg rucksack and could ignore the pain of the blisters and torn shoulder muscles.
One study found that religious people feel less pain than agnostics by looking at a picture of the Virgin Mary. Neuroscientists and psychologists are beginning to understand how this is possible, how the brain can block out pain in the right circumstances, so is this something we could all benefit from?
Picture: The statue of the Virgin Mary, Credit: Francisco Leong/AFP/Getty Images
Producer Geraldine Fitzgerald
View all episodes
By BBC World Service
4.4
940940 ratings
What if your brain could naturally control pain? Professor Irene Tracey and her colleagues are trying to unlock the natural mechanisms in the brain that limit the amount of pain we feel.
We hear about how children learning judo are taught special techniques and from ex-marine Chris Shirley who ran a marathon carrying a 45kg rucksack and could ignore the pain of the blisters and torn shoulder muscles.
One study found that religious people feel less pain than agnostics by looking at a picture of the Virgin Mary. Neuroscientists and psychologists are beginning to understand how this is possible, how the brain can block out pain in the right circumstances, so is this something we could all benefit from?
Picture: The statue of the Virgin Mary, Credit: Francisco Leong/AFP/Getty Images
Producer Geraldine Fitzgerald
More shows like Discovery
View all
Global News Podcast
7,639 Listeners
More or Less
876 Listeners
Newshour
1,046 Listeners
In Our Time
5,520 Listeners
The Documentary Podcast
1,799 Listeners
6 Minute English
1,763 Listeners
Learning English Conversations
1,049 Listeners
Desert Island Discs
1,979 Listeners
The Naked Scientists Podcast
599 Listeners
Nature Podcast
766 Listeners
Health Check
90 Listeners
BBC Inside Science
407 Listeners
Science Weekly
410 Listeners
Science Magazine Podcast
821 Listeners
Curious Cases
757 Listeners
The Inquiry
731 Listeners
The Life Scientific
217 Listeners
Unexpected Elements
366 Listeners
CrowdScience
476 Listeners
People Fixing the World
238 Listeners
You're Dead to Me
3,177 Listeners
Americast
720 Listeners
The World, the Universe and Us
113 Listeners
The Bomb
1,002 Listeners