system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: why does exerting pressure reduce pain?
gpt
There are a couple things like vascular compression and limiting air contact, but the biggie is your brain's input threshold. Think of it a little bit like math. You have lots of different nerves that all give your brain info, but your brain can only pay attention to so much total info from the nerves at a given moment (lets call that number 10). So if you add another sort of nerve signal from pressure it competes with the ouchy signal. If you only have the ouchy to pay attention to it would be 10:10 of what your brain gives attention to. But if you add another strong feeling (pressure with a value of lets say, 3) then the total pain your brain can notice is now only 7:10 and pressure of 3:10.