How Much Torture Can A Human Body Handle

it's like a scene from your worst nightmare you're trapped to a table in some dark dingy basement with an assortment of terrifying tools laid out on a tray next to you in the corner of your eye you watch as a shadowy figure slowly approaches as it draws near your thoughts go from escape to panic to resignation as just one question floats to the front of your mind just how much torture can your body endure whether it's stubbing your toe biting your tongue or stepping on a lego ouch we've all experienced moments of intense pain before but how much pain can your body take before it literally shuts down as unpleasant as it might feel pain is actually really important that its core pain is just feeling the intense experience of some sensation or other more specifically it's an uncomfortable feeling it warns you when something is wrong in a particular area of your body without pain unknowingly putting your hand on a hot stove for example could result in horrific burns that permanently damage your limb fortunately for most of us pain would kick in the instant our hand connected with a fiery filament triggering us to yank our hands away from it with a summary ouch sure it might have been unpleasant and you might have run your fingers under a cold tap for a little while but overall no harm no foul right believe it or not there are actually people who can't feel pain it's a genetic disorder so rare that only a few hundred people are estimated to have it and while it may seem like a superpower at first people with this condition constantly put themselves in harm's way is they have no real concept of what pain or injury is and as a result have no idea what their body's natural limitations are pain lets you know that you have some kind of illness like an ear infection or an injury like a sprained ankle enabling you to go ahead and do something to remedy this situation like take antibiotics or get some crutches without pain our body has no real way of knowing if something has gone wrong so clearly pain is a good thing but you know what they say about too much of a good thing which begs the question how much pain is too much well the truth is pain tolerance varies from person to person some people are driven years after getting a mere paper cut while others can go through the entire process of childbirth without painkillers Bravo moms however knowing when pain is too much for any person is pretty easy since an overload of pain literally causes your body to shut down due to a lack of blood supply to your brain but why does too much pain lead to this insane brain drain insane in the brain drain excessive pain can cause your autonomous nervous system or a and asked to get overwhelmed and stop working temporarily your ANS is responsible for controlling things like your heart rate and blood pressure so when it stops working your brain panics and you end up fainting while there's no official final threshold for pain in human beings researchers estimate the amount of pain necessary to cause a person to shut down in this way is somewhere between the pain experienced during the process of childbirth and straight up taking a blowtorch towards the face you might argue that passing out due to excessive pain is some kind of blessing in disguise since it gives you the ability to mentally escape from an overwhelming situation unfortunately torture is often designed to inflict pain whilst keeping you conscious and present so as a result you might not be able to rely on your brain shutting down to escape from it fortunately there are ways to consciously mitigate pain you see as with most things in life pain tolerance is all about perspective the more pain you've experienced the better you are able to contextualize it and tolerate it moving forward after all imagine you've never so much as broken a fingernail stubbing a toe would feel like the end of the world right now imagine you two broke in a couple of bones while skateboarding is a kid or something and maybe you even twisted your ankle playing basketball a stubbed toe might hurt fed with those painful experiences to look back on you know that in the grand scheme of things just wasn't that bad as humans we make the conscious decision as to how we choose to experience pain never heard the phrase mind over matter things like mental focus clarity and meditation can all help a person drastically reduce painful sensations and this isn't just a theoretical unquantifiable change either it's biological yoga practitioners for example who tend to be all about focus clarity and meditation have been found to physically have more Raye matter in their parts of their brain that are related to pain processing and pain regulation in fact exercise in general is said to raise pain tolerance and decrease pain perception after all you know if they say no pain no gain if you're not the mindful yogi type going in the complete opposite direction has its benefits - yelling ow or even loudly cursing can reduce sensitivity to pain as you're experiencing it likely due to the fact that vocalizing and expressing pain temporarily distracts you from the actual sensation itself interestingly it appears that vividly imagining doing a relaxing activity like taking a warm bath surrounded by candles or hanging in a hammock by the beach can help dull feelings of pain - the more vividly you imagine the less pain you wind up feeling of course it can be difficult to think of soothing thoughts when you're under intense duress but eh that sounds like a you problem while these tips and tricks are helpful and can lead to increased pain tolerance there's no denying that some people are just naturally predisposed to handling pain and torture better than others the biological reasons for this relate to the production of an enzyme called comt the more comt a person produces the better the body is able to neutralize any pain it feels unfortunately there's not much you can do to stimulate comt production or become an expert yogi once you wake up in a torture chamber so it looks like you might have to settle for the old-fashioned method of screaming and wishing you were somewhere else now we won't get into specifics regarding the kinds of torture you might face since we're sure you're imaginative enough that's what Hollywood is for however it's worth noting that physical pain may not be the only thing you have to endure after all tortures come a long way since the Middle Ages while back then you may have been subjected to horrific physical torture devices like varrock or the Iron Maiden the spike filled sarcophagus not the award-winning heavy metal band modern militaristic torture tends to be more psychological than physical that's because we've realized that some of the worst forms of torture don't involve any physical pain at all take white torture for example victims of this psychological torture aren't physically harmed in any way far from it in fact they're placed in a padded white room furnished with bright white light given white clothes attended to by guards dressed in white wearing padded and even white food like plain white rice as a result prisoners are so deprived of any kind of visual audio stimulation that they can end up losing their very sense of self as a result well this type of psychological torture may be seen as more humane since no one's toenails are being pulled out it can be argued it's actually even more destructive and inhuman after all physical trauma heals but destroying someone's cognitive function and sense of reality that's not impossible to bounce back from ultimately when it comes to both physical and psychological torture the only thing that dictates how well you'll be able to endure it is the strength of your mind the stronger your mind the better you'll be able to resist keep your sense of self and tactile doing so knowing that let's rewind to the scenario at the beginning of this video so you can look your torturer dead in the eye and let them know they'll never break you wait is that your 11th grade English teacher she's holding your final paper and she's giving you an F as you wake up screaming in horror you realize that your worst nightmare was just that a nightmare you're safe and sound in your own bed with no imminent threat to your well-being that you know of at least and as you gratefully drift back off to sleep the last thing you remember thinking to yourself is maybe it's time I start doing yoga ciao for now brainiacs if you enjoyed this video be sure to LIKE and subscribe below then head over to the Brainiac youtube channel for even more scary scenes [Music]

Channel: Brainiac

Views: 46,722

Rating: 4.9120173 out of 5

Keywords: Iron Maiden, The Rack, CIA, Military, Medieval, Pain, Resistance, IRA, Brainiac, education, learning, learn, human body, cartoon, animation, animated, what if, thins you didn't know, infograph

Id: hTSKBgYanjQ

Length: 8min 14sec (494 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 25 2020