What Is Pain Tolerance?
Pain tolerance is the term used to explain the amount of pain that someone can withstand before he or she suffers from an emotional or physical breakdown. Pain tolerance varies from person to person and can also vary depending on the emotional state that someone is in prior to the onset of the painful situation. In general, research indicates that men have a higher level of pain tolerance than women. Pain tolerance is different than pain threshold. Pain threshold is the term used to describe the level of pain necessary to generate a painful response in an individual. Someone can have a very high pain threshold and a low level of pain tolerance, for example. Some people mistakenly believe that pain tolerance can be boosted by exposure to pain. The idea makes sense, exposing the body to increasing levels of pain will help it build up immunity to the pain. In real life, however, just the opposite occurs. The body, once exposed to high levels of pain, becomes more sensitive to it. This mak
