Why do we feel pain?

But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids

Vermont Public

Nature, Language, Kids & Family, Science

4.4 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2022

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why do we feel pain when we get hurt? What is pain? Why do we cry when we get hurt? Why do we say ow or ouch? We’re learning about how pain works with Joshua Pate. He’s a physical therapist and author of a forthcoming children’s book series about pain.

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Pain happens when your body sends signals to your brain that something is wrong. And your brain sends signals to your body to feel pain! Pain is protective–it lets us know to stop doing something that is damaging or might damage our bodies. And it lets us know that something is wrong and we might need to get help from an adult or a medical provider.
When you get hurt, like scraping your knee for example, the nerve cells in the knee send a message to the brain. Your eyes might see the scraped knee and send another message to your brain. Then your brain has to decide how much danger your knee is in. Pain is messaging that lets your brain know that something is not well. If you didn’t have that pain, you might keep scraping your knee over and over.
Pain is biopsychosocial, meaning biology, psychology and social or environmental factors all play a role in what pain feels like for individual people.
A lot of things can turn the feeling of pain up or down. Distraction, like listening to music or watching a video can help turn pain down. Staring at the source of pain can make it hurt more.
Outside factors can also impact pain. In a study from several years ago, people were asked to hold a freezing cold rod. Scientists changed the colored lights in the room. When the lights were blue people felt less pain from the rod than when the lights were red.
Normally, pain will recede when an injury heals. But not for everyone. Sometimes people suffer from chronic pain after an injury.
We cry when we’re in pain as a way of letting others know that something is wrong. We also learn to use the words ow or ouch. Other languages have different words for pain.

Transcript

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0:00.0	But why? A podcast for curious kids is known for serious answers to silly questions sent
0:07.0	in by kids just like you. But did you know that but why is now a book series?
0:12.9	Our first book, Our Lama's Ticklish, answers questions from real kids about farm animals.
0:18.8	This colorfully illustrated book is perfect for kids ages 8 to 10. And our second book,
0:24.4	To Fish Breathe Underwater, explores the underwater world of the ocean. Learn more at but why kids.org slash books.
0:32.4	This is But Why, a podcast for curious kids from Vermont Public. I'm Jane Lintholm. On this show, we take questions from kids just like you.
0:44.4	And we find answers. We'll tackle anything you want to learn more about. You all are very curious about the world around you. But you're also curious about yourself and how you're bought from Vermont Public.
1:00.4	And how your bodies and minds work. So today we're going to explore a really interesting topic that has to do with something that includes both our bodies and our minds.
1:16.4	I'll give you a hint, see if you can guess. This something is really unpleasant. But why is this?
1:22.4	And our minds. I'll give you a hint, see if you can guess. This something is really unpleasant. But it's extremely necessary and very important to keep our bodies safe.
1:36.4	When it works as it's supposed to, you get signals from your brain to your body that can help protect you and keep you from doing things that will damage your body.
1:46.4	When these signals don't fire correctly, they can cause major issues. Got any guesses? Here, we'll let the questions themselves give you the answer.
1:57.4	What is pain and how does it work? I am Nova. I am eight years old. I live in Boston, Massachusetts.
2:08.4	I'm Chloe. I'm from Reading, England and I'm 11 years old. Why do we feel pain?
2:13.4	My name is the Kai. I'm from Missed Arizona. I'm 10 years old. And my question is, why do you feel pain when you fall and scrape your knee?
2:21.4	So, what is pain?
2:24.4	Pain is one of the best protectors we have, right? It keeps us safe.
2:28.4	Well, pain is a protector. We've got to learn more about this. And that's right. Today we're answering all kinds of questions about pain.
2:38.4	And our guest for this episode is Joshua Peat. I'm a pain scientist. And what that means is I do research about pain and kind of how that feeling works.
2:50.4	I'm also a physiotherapist. Well, that's what we call it in Australia. In America, it would be physical therapists.
2:56.4	Josh spends his time helping people feel better and also teaching new physical therapists how to make people feel better. The job of a physical therapist is to get rid of the injuries that are causing pain.
3:08.4	But the cause of pain and how to fix it can be really, really complicated.
	...

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