Our bodies have tons of nerves that help us move, think, and feel in all kinds of ways. When nerve endings in your body detect possible damage somewhere, they send messages to your brain, which produces the feeling or sensation of pain. If you were to step on hot sand with bare feet, nerve endings would send a speedy signal along pathways through the spinal cord to the brain, telling it that your feet were being hurt. You’d sense pain and would react to the signal almost immediately to protect your feet.

If you didn’t get that pain signal, you wouldn’t be alerted to the problem, and your feet could get seriously injured. Pain can be an important, protective alarm signal letting you know that something is hurting you.