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.