Published in the latest version of PLoS ONE, this study1 was performed on a group of more than 10,000 adults in Norway from the University Hospital in Tromsø.The researchers had the participants self-report their activity levels and then measured their pain tolerance. 

How’d they do that? Each participant submerged their hand in freezing cold ice water and then ranked their pain on a scale. Researchers measured pain tolerance two times across eight years. 

In the end, participants that reported a more active lifestyle ranked the pain of the icy water lower. More frequent exercisers were also able to keep their hand in the water for about 20 seconds longer than the mostly sedentary group. 

There was a dose-response trend too, which means the more often they exercised, the more this resilience to pain grew. Interestingly, participants who increased their activity level over the eight-year study period also showed increased tolerance to pain over time. 

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