The pain withdrawal reflex is an involuntary action in which the body reacts to pain by trying to move itself away from the source of the pain, to reduce or even eliminate that pain.
Although this is a reflex, there are two interesting aspects: (1) the body can be trained to over-ride that reflex; and (2) an unconscious body (or even drunk or drugged bodies) will not exhibit the reflex.
Advanced martial artists can use the pain withdrawal reflex to their advantage. Certain application of techniques - for example pressure points - can cause the body to react and move in a certain way, for increased effectiveness of the technique - or to allow a greater range of techniques.
| This health-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Famous quotes containing the words pain, withdrawal and/or reflex:
“There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A separation situation is different for adults than it is for children. When we were very young children, a physical separation was interpreted as a violation of our inalienable rights....As we grew older, the withdrawal of love, whether that meant being misunderstood, mislabeled or slighted, became the separation situation we responded to.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“As a medium of exchange,... worrying regulates intimacy, and it is often an appropriate response to ordinary demands that begin to feel excessive. But from a modernized Freudian view, worrying—as a reflex response to demand—never puts the self or the objects of its interest into question, and that is precisely its function in psychic life. It domesticates self-doubt.”
—Adam Phillips, British child psychoanalyst. “Worrying and Its Discontents,” in On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored, p. 58, Harvard University Press (1993)