Essentials: How to Control Your Sense of Pain & Pleasure

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, I explore the sensations of pain and pleasure, explaining how they are sensed in the body and interpreted by the brain as well as methods to control their intensity. I discuss both the hardwired mechanisms and subjective factors that shape an individual’s perception of pain and pleasure. I also explain why pain thresholds vary from person to person and discuss various treatments for pain management such as acupuncture and supplements. Finally, I explain the role of key neurochemicals like dopamine and serotonin in mediating our experience of pain and pleasure. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Pain & Pleasure 00:00:39 Skin, Appetitive vs Aversive Behaviors 00:02:10 Skin, Neurons & Brain 00:04:46 Brain Interpretation, Homunculus, Two-Point Discrimination Test 00:07:43 Pain & Pleasure, Subjective Interpretation 00:09:53 Sponsor: AG1 00:11:30 Tool: Pain & Expectation 00:13:08 Pain Threshold 00:14:46 Heat & Cold, Tool: Moving into Cold or Hot Environments 00:16:37 Subjective Pain, Psychosomatic, Fibromyalgia, Whole Body Pain, Acetyl-L-carnitine 00:20:54 Acupuncture, Electroacupuncture, Pain Management 00:23:44 Sponsors: LMNT & Eight Sleep 00:26:36 Red Heads & Pain Threshold, Endorphins 00:28:32 Improving Pain Threshold, Dopamine 00:30:00 Pleasure, Dopamine, Serotonin; Depression, Anti-depressants 00:34:12 Pleasure & Pain Balance, Dopamine, Addiction 00:36:08 Recap & Key Takeaways Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance.
0:11.4	I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:17.4	Today, we continue our discussion of the senses.
0:25.6	And the senses we are going to discuss are pain and pleasure. Pain and pleasure reflect two opposite ends of a continuum,
0:29.6	a continuum that involves detection of things in our skin
0:33.6	and the perception, the understanding of what those events are.
0:39.7	Our skin is our largest sensory organ
0:42.9	and our largest organ indeed.
0:45.0	It is much larger than any of the other organs in our body.
0:48.6	And it's an odd organ if you think about it.
0:50.7	It has so many functions.
0:52.6	It acts as a barrier between our organs
0:54.8	and the outside world.
0:56.6	It harbors neurons, nerve cells that allow us to detect things
1:00.6	like light touch or temperature or pressure
1:04.6	of various kinds.
1:06.2	And it's an organ that we hang ornaments on.
1:09.3	People put earrings in their ears.
1:11.6	People decorate their skin with tattoos and inks and other things.
1:17.4	And it's an organ that allows us to experience either great pain or great pleasure.
1:24.2	So it's a multifaceted organ and it's one that our brain needs to make sense of in a multifaceted way.
1:30.3	I think we all intuitively understand what pleasure and pain are.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 16 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Scicomm Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Scicomm Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.