How To Increase Your Pain Tolerance

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Hemingway said, “To hell with them. Nothing hurts if you don’t let it.”

David Goggins said, “Can’t hurt me.”

Chesty Puller said, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

Criss Angel said, “Pain is a beautiful thing. When you feel pain, you know you’re alive.”

Physical and emotional pain are as necessary as they are undesirable. Anne Lemke was recently on the Rich Roll Podcast, speaking about how addiction is more prevalent now than ever because our vices are so easy to access. Alcohol is everywhere. Marijuana is widely legal. And we can order anything online without any effort at all. Not only that, but we’re subliminally encouraged to avoid pain. We can avoid pain for a long time, if we want to. But the avoidance of pain is sure to manifest in even more pain.

As an endurance athlete, I’m fairly well acquainted with pain in its many iterations. And, the more I do hard things the better I am at managing pain. At the starting line of my last race, I mentally grappled with the physical pain I knew I had to face. Walking up to the door of pain is one thing. Entering is quite another. And coming back for more is either courageous or foolish.