Why Do We Feel Pain? What We Learned From Palliative Expert Dr BJ Miller And Chris Hemsworth’s “Pain Jenga”

Pain sucks. Burning, aching, stabbing. Emotional, physiological, existential. There’s all kinds to choose from, and modern medicine has innovated many clever ways to overcome it. Thing is, as much as pain is unpleasant, it’s also vital. A reminder that if we touch the fire or prod the thorn, we could injure ourselves. Pain, really, keeps us alive.

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There have been several reported case studies of people with congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP), and it’s considered to be an extremely dangerous condition. People living with CIP can’t feel pain, so they have to constantly check themselves for cuts and bruises and be very mindful of accidents. Their body won’t warn them if they’re walking around with a serious injury or infection, and that can be the difference between life and death if you fail to seek out medical treatment before it’s too late.

That said, pain can become a barrier when it affects our quality of life, particularly in the context of chronic pain that can be very severe even if the ailment itself isn’t putting us in immediate danger. This kind of pain is something that actor Chris Hemsworth is familiar with, having experienced chronic back pain for most of his life due to scoliosis.

Hemsworth recently explored this pain in an episode of LIMITLESS: Live Better Now, which returns for a second series this month. The “Pain” episode takes him on a journey through South Korea guided by Dr BJ Miller, a Hospice and Palliative Medicine physician and Assistant Clinical Professor at UCSF. Together, they explore what pain is, why we feel it, and how facing it can actually improve our experience of pain.

Miller, who survived a 1990 accident in which he lost both legs below the knee and half of one arm, has used his own experiences to pioneer a new way of managing pain and end of life care. He shares what he’s learned from studying everything from ancient healing traditions to cutting-edge science on this journey to reframing pain, including – for Hemsworth – a very entertaining game of Jenga.

Though the extremes Hemsworth faces in his "valley of pain" challenge aren't exactly the kind of noxious stimuli most of us face in our daily lives, the episode reveals there are things we can all try to change our relationship with pain. Sometimes, it can be as simple as laughing at your mates.

“We finally understand from a physiological what was obvious all along: that pain is an experience and it depends on how you’re wired,” Dr BJ Miller told IFLScience. “It depends on your history. It depends on who’s around you. So, I’m much kinder around my own and other people’s responses to pain now that I understand it better.”

We caught up with Hemsworth and Miller to find out more about what it was like filming the episode, and what lessons we can take away from it to improve our own relationship with pain. Want to learn more about pain and the techniques that can alter our experience of it? Catch LIMITLESS: Live Better Now on Disney+ and Hulu on August 15, or National Geographic on August 25.