Overcoming Pain With the Power of the Mind

So do people who walk on hot coals really feel no pain? And how do some escape injury, while others end up with burns and blisters?

It's the power of the mind, if you ask those who have tried firewalking, an increasingly popular component of many Western self-help seminars. It's aimed at helping participants overcome personal fears. (Skeptics argue that it's just physics: the coals are not really hot enough to transfer dangerous levels of heat to the feet during a quick dash across the embers, among other factors). What we do know is that firewalking has been practiced for centuries, across all cultures. The !Kung [sic] tribe in Africa, for example, firewalked as part of their healing rituals, while many Tibetan monks did it to increase their focus and concentration.

Through the ages, people have used the mind-body connection to face the pain of rituals, rites of passage and tests of endurance. Here are a few examples:

Piercings and tattoos today are mostly decorative, but among the 18th century native Aleut people of Alaska, women who endured painful tattoos were admired as they were seen to be more willing to undergo childbirth, while men who underwent extensive piercings often scored more than just one wife.

Followers of a 13th and 14th century Christian movement called flagellantism would whip themselves bloody with rods and switches in public places to show their piety.

The Maori men of New Zealand created deep scars on their faces by carving intricate patterns with a chisel and rubbing in ink, to show their social status and to look fierce in battle.

Among the Savite Hindus, devotees were pierced with metal hooks and suspended in midair for hours to attain the blessings of deities, a practice that still exists today -- despite being outlawed in some countries as barbaric.

Certain Sufis in the Middle East can enter a trance-like spiritual state where they can insert skewers into their body and eat glass, with no physical pain or injury. Experts believe the brain shuts off the body's pain signals.

Like the Sufis, modern-day athletes often push through the pain, as well. In 2002, Lynne Cox was the first person to swim a mile in the Antarctic Ocean, near-freezing waters that would kill most of us in minutes. Though buoyant and superfit, she had to mentally control how her body reacted to the icy conditions, to prevent going into shock -- or worse.