How do you block out intense pain?

How do you block out certain degrees of pain? You see Russian Spetnaz soldiers do it. Is there a certain training technique to achieve this? Anyone have any ideas?

Just realize that it wont kill you. Anything truely damaging will be numbed and removed from your preception. Like i could take a nail and pin my hand to a wall and the only pain i would feel would be the nail initialy going in.. then numbness. Of course your mind is only able to block it out for so long.... unless the nerves have become damaged.

reply to post by Maddogkull


Couple of things come to mind.

1. Morphine patch straight into the spinal cord.

2. Getting acclimated to physical pain by constant exposure.

3. Massive amounts of adrenaline flooding the body during extreme experiences.

4. Shock.

5. What I think you really wanted to know about.... exerting mental control to lessen or deaden pain. I have heard about folks who can do it, but I would imagine it takes a lot of practice. I know women are taught breathing techniques to help ease the pain of childbirth (my great-grandmother was a midwife). Or perhaps the person does feel the pain but is able to bear it? A high pain threshold, in other words.

Can't wait to find out what some of the real experts suggest!

Depending on the pain, I have always pushed it to the threshold(before you pass out) and then relaxed and the pain is numbed. That way is physical not mental so I don't know if it helps. Funny, I just sprained my ankle playing squash about two hours ago.

Would it be possible, since "pain" is meerly an electrical signal sent from your nerves to your brain, to mentally block it out? It would take amazing control of your body.

-E-

Self hypnosis is what a marine friend told me about, and the other one..."If You Don't Mind It dont Matter" mind over matter thing.

If you have you sub-conscience trained right before you feel pain, you can basically have the reflex action to feel whatever you wish it to be, besides pain.

I have to agree with Wertdagf on this one, once you realize that it won't kill you, it's pretty easy to block it out.

Dissociation is a mighty handy skill, but you're mostly born with the propensity and unless you're traumatized in childhood, you're not going to be really good at it.

Serious painkillers is one way, but you become accustomed to them and they have nasty side effects.

Hypnosis has less side effects.

Ask sufferers of severe, chronic pain. It's mostly in the head.

Connect with it fully and realise it's not you - it'll dissipate.

orgasm works for me... (seriously, not trying to be funny here...)

And yes, you'd be amazed at how much control the mind can exert in blocking pain....(especially when bolstered by the baby batter on the brain...)

Painkillers can work, but can be addictive... However, chronic pain sufferers often build up immunities to them, so you have to have a pain specialist doc, to recognize and get different treatment, when one stops working. My wife deals with chronic pain from fibromyalgia and back problems.

Massage is another good tool, and I do that alot for her to help with pain.

reply to post by Wertdagf


I wanted to give you props on the Death Note AV!

I'm a huge fan!

My SN on a few other message boards is L.

My best method follows along the lines of meditation so to speak. Though I can only say this only works for me, I've never really put this idea to anyone else, so I wouldn't really know IF it could work for anyone else.

Quite simply, I block out pain by focusing on something else completely, whether it be a TV show, book, cartoons, music, something funny a friend said one time, anything really mundane. I even sometimes just 'zone out', where I'm not thinking about anything at all.

For example, about a year ago, I broke my foot while on a canyoning trip, deep down in a valley in Australia. I was lucky to be travelling with two other men. It was a very long walk back up, so for a while I tried walking on it, and yes it was painful, but it helped for me to think about something completely irrelevant to the situation. This doesn't block it out entirely, so after a long painful walk, I was carried by the two other *muscly* men (I'm a very lucky girl ) for the rest of the long trip. It was considerably less painful, so I eased it even more again by focusing on something else.

This has always worked for me. I'm not sure why, I have never practised the standard methods of meditation.

I'm curious to know the Russian Spetnaz soldier technique, I think I'll go look it up now.

Good luck.

Based on my exp, the best thing to do is just deal with it and get through it. Like in the ring when i get popped in the jaw, my jaw will hurt if i cover up, fight or go down so i just keep fighting and get through it. Most of the time when you look back on it you will see that the pain was not that bad. Now in cases of extreme damage like being shot or stabbed i would imagine it would be the same, it is going to hurt if you lay down or try to get to safety, so just do what you have to do.
It also helps me to just look at pain as only being a sensation nothing more, i do not "block it out" i jjust recognize that it is there and get on with it.

[edit on 13-4-2010 by zaiger]

Just focus on your breathing, keep your breathing relaxed and don't tense up.