Why Pain Is More Than Just an Injury: Understanding Your Pain Threshold

Pain is complex—your brain, stress levels, and past experiences all affect how you feel it. Learn why your pain threshold matters and what it means.

Have you ever wondered why two people can suffer the same injury but have totally different pain experiences? The answer lies in how pain is processed, not just by the body, but by the brain.

Pain isn’t as simple as “tissue damage equals pain.” Let’s break it down.

Imagine you stub your toe. The nerves in your toe detect a potential threat and send a signal to your brain. Your brain processes that information and may output pain to alert you.

This is part of what we call nociception, one of the mechanisms behind pain. But nociception alone doesn’t determine your pain level. Between the moment your toe hits the corner and the moment you say “ouch,” your nervous system has a lot of decisions to make.

These pain signals make several “pit stops” on their way to your brain, where they can be amplified or dampened depending on various factors. That’s why two people with the same injury can report completely different levels of pain.

Many factors influence how your brain decides whether to output pain and how much of it:

• Stress (acute or chronic)

• Past injuries

• Sleep quality

• Environmental context

• Emotional state

• Childhood trauma

• Substance use

• Genetics and more

These variables affect how sensitive your nervous system is to incoming signals.

To measure sensitivity in specific areas, we can use a concept called the pain-pressure threshold (PPT). This is the amount of pressure it takes for a person to feel pain instead of just pressure.

👉 Some important facts about PPT:

• A low PPT in one area doesn’t mean someone has a low pain tolerance overall.

• A lower PPT can be useful after injury, your body is protecting itself while healing.

• But chronically low PPT can be problematic, signaling ongoing sensitivity even when tissues have healed.

This means your pain threshold can change over time, and that’s actually good news. We know that educating folks about pain can immediately increase the PPT. Regular mindfulness practice can also increase the PPT. This is the magic of neuroplasticity, our nervous system's ability to rewire itself when we ask it to do so with enough consistency. Ready to give it a try?