Getting into a regular exercise routine comes with a whole host of benefits for our mental and physical health, and researchers just found another one: It may increase your threshold for pain.
Researchers from several institutions in Norway studied 10,732 adults, with two batches of data taken 7-8 years apart.
The data compared exercise routines with pain tolerance, as measured via a cold pressor test, or CPT, where you dunk your hand into frigid water for as long as possible, up to a maximum tolerance time of 106 seconds.
The results were pretty consistent: Those who were more active were better at handling the pain of the cold water for a more extended period, and those who increased their activity levels over the two survey points increased their pain threshold too.
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