Painful needle heading your way? A sharp intake of breath might be all that is needed to make that injection a little more bearable.
When you are stressed, your blood pressure rises to fuel your brain or limbs should you need to fight or flee. But your body has a natural response for calming back down. Pressure sensors on blood vessels in your lungs can tell your brain to bring the pressure back down, and the signals from these sensors also make the brain dampen the nervous system, leaving you less sensitive to pain. This dampening mechanism might be why people with higher blood pressures appear to have higher pain thresholds.
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