Name: Why Stubbing Your Toe Hurts So Much
Uploaded: 2019-03-19T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 3 min 3 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Participle clauses

It's right up there with paper cuts and chapped lips, annoying minor injuries that hurt way more than they have any right to.

But it turns out there's a good reason why stubbing your toe hurts so much.

When you stub your toe, you're slamming it with a force equal to two to three times your body weight.

That's about the same force as a karate punch.

And since your toe has a tiny surface area, that force can't be spread out, so the pain stays concentrated at the point of impact.

It's the same reason it hurts so much more to step on the tiny, pointy end of a thumbtack than the wider, blunt end.

But you don't just feel the immediate shock like when you step on a thumbtack.

There's that aching throb that comes after.

That's because when you stub your toe, you're actually hitting a bundle of special nerve endings called nociceptors.

They all fire at once, blaring a danger signal.

But some signals travel faster than others.

The faster A-delta nociceptors fire the first wave of signal.

Which races at 20 meters per second of thousands of densely bundled nerve fibers, and ultimately to your brain.

That causes the sharp, sudden pain you feel at the moment of impact.

But some nerve fibers called C nociceptors send a slower signal at only 2 meters per second.

So after a moment's delay, the second wave of pain signals reach your brain.

That's the dull throbbing that lingers on.

You can find nociceptors all over your body from your eyes to your bladder.

But they're concentrated at the highest densities in parts of your body that you use to explore your environment.

That's why accidents like paper cuts and chapped lips can also hurt more than they seem like they should.

Now, your toe isn't packed with as many nociceptors as your fingertips.

But since there's not much in the way of padding to cushion the blow, it's easy to set those unprotected nociceptors off.

Researchers suspect the pain that we feel from mishaps like a stubbed toe might have even saved our ancestors' lives.

Back before antibiotics, even the tiniest cut could mean a deadly infection, and feet, which were constantly in contact with dirty, bacteria-infested surfaces, were particularly vulnerable.

So the people who had extra-sensitive feet might have been more careful about where they stepped.

As a result, they'd be less likely to get infections and would live to pass on their genes.

So the next time that you collapse on the floor cradling your aching toe...

You can thank your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpa for the privilege.