How to Control Your Sense of Pain & Pleasure

This episode I discuss our sense of pain and pleasure: where and how they each arise in our mind and body and various ways to control their intensity. I discuss the science of behavioral tools like acupuncture and hypnosis and directed pressure, including the neural circuits they each activate to modulate our experience of pain or pleasure. I also discuss whole body pain, pain "syndromes" and novel pain relief compounds such as Acetyl-L-Carnitine, SAMe and Agmatine. I discuss neuroplasticity of the pain system and the key role that visual perception plays in pain modulation. Finally, I address the link between dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, with arousal, pleasure and pain. As always, both basic science and various protocols are described. Note: The description of the dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) was intentionally simplified and does not include mention of dorsal horn spinal relay neurons, etc. For an excellent full text review of this anatomy and circuits for touch sensing, please see: https://bit.ly/3jH9CPf For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Skin, Pain, Pleasure  (00:01:50) Protocol 1: Maximizing Motivation (with Dopamine & Pleasure) (00:07:29) Sponsors: AG1, LMNT (00:12:04) Pleasure & Pain, & Skin Sensors  (00:18:13) Sensing Touch with Your Brain: Magnification of Feet, Hands, Lips, Face, Genitals (00:22:16) Two-Point Discrimination, Dermatomes (00:28:11) Thoughts & Genes That Make Physical Pain Worse (00:33:45) Expectations, Anxiety, & Pain Threshold (00:40:27) Protocol 2: Cold Sensing Is Relative; Getting Into Cold Water (00:45:22) Protocol 3: Heat Is Absolute (00:48:10) Injury & Pain (00:52:04) Protocol 4: Plasticity of Pain: Key Role of Vision  (00:58:08) Sensing Disparate Body Parts As Merged (01:01:00) Pain “Syndromes”, Psychogenic Fever, “Psychosomatics” (01:04:40) Fibromyalgia, Naltrexone, Protocol 5: Acetyl-L-Carnitine  (01:12:24) Protocol 6: Agmatine, S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe), L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate* (01:17:27) Acupuncture: Mechanism, Non-Responders, Itch & Inflammation (01:28:20) Laser Photobiomodulation, Protocol 7: Hypnosis (reveri.com)  (01:30:00) Protocol 8: Pressure-Based Pain Relief, “Gate Theory of Pain (Relief)” (01:37:53) Redheads & Pain Thresholds, Endogenous Opioids  (01:44:02) Protocol 8: Love & Pain, Dopamine (01:49:23) Pleasure & Reproduction, Dopamine & Serotonin, Oxytocin (01:51:40) Protocol 9: PEA, L-Phenylalanine (Precursor to Tyrosine) (01:55:40) Contextual Control of Pleasure by Autonomic Arousal, Dopamine Baselines (01:59:40) Pleasure-Pain Balance (02:01:24) Protocol 10: Controlling Pleasure, Dopamine & Motivation Over Time (02:06:40) Protocol 11: Immediate, Non-Goal-Directed Pleasure, PAG  (02:08:40) Direction of Touch: Pleasure Versus Pain, Arousal & Touch “Sensitivity”  (02:13:00) Synthesis & How to Conceptualize Pain and Pleasure, Support Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

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Huberman Lab discusses neuroscience — how our brain and its connections with the organs of our body control our perceptions, our behaviors, and our health. We also discuss existing and emerging tools for measuring and changing how our nervous system works. Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., is a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the department of neurobiology, and by courtesy, psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford School of Medicine. He has made numerous significant contributions to the fields of brain development, brain function and neural plasticity, which is the ability of our nervous system to rewire and learn new behaviors, skills and cognitive functioning.  Huberman is a McKnight Foundation and Pew Foundation Fellow and was awarded the Cogan Award, given to the scientist making the most significant discoveries in the study of vision, in 2017. His lab’s most recent work focuses on the influence of vision and respiration on human performance and brain states such as fear and courage. He also works on neural regeneration and directs a clinical trial to promote visual restoration in diseases that cause blindness. Huberman is also actively involved in developing tools now in use by the elite military in the U.S. and Canada, athletes, and technology industries to optimize performance in high stress environments, enhance neural plasticity, mitigate stress and optimize sleep.   Work from the Huberman Laboratory at Stanford School of Medicine has been published in top journals including Nature, Science and Cell and has been featured in TIME, BBC, Scientific American, Discover and other top media outlets.  In 2021, Dr. Huberman launched the Huberman Lab podcast. The podcast is frequently ranked in the top 5 of all podcasts globally and is often ranked #1 in the categories of Science, Education, and Health & Fitness.