How to Control Your Sense of Pain & Pleasure

In this episode of the Huberman Lab Podcast, Andrew Huberman discusses the science of pain and pleasure, explaining how the skin's sensory neurons and the brain's somatosensory cortex interact to create these experiences. He explores factors influencing pain perception, including expectation, anxiety, sleep, circadian rhythms, and genetics, and delves into the role of dopamine in motivation and reward. Huberman also covers various methods for managing pain, such as intermittent reward schedules, cold and heat exposure, the mirror box technique for phantom limb pain, acupuncture, self-hypnosis, and supplementation with compounds like acetyl L-carnitine, agmatine, and SAMe. He touches on the subjective nature of pain, the influence of visual perception, and the potential for harnessing the dopamine system to enhance resilience and transform pain into a more tolerable experience.