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When I focus on tactile signals from a certain part of my body for a while (e.g. for one minute), this part of the body will usually become warmer. For example I can do that with a certain finger or with my palm, or with a certain spot on my forearm or on my leg, etc. Basically any part of the body.

From what I heard, when you focus on a spot within your body, the blood flow increases there. But what is the mechanism exactly? How does it happen? From what I found in neuroscience, sensory system only sends signals in one direction, from receptors to the brain. Attention is something happening within the cortex. What processes exactly take place when you focus on a certain body area? Is there a "response" signal from the brain to the area? How does it increase the blood flow?

My interest actually comes from my discovery that using my attention I can do surprising things within my body. I can relieve pain in most cases, it only takes 5-15 minutes of deep focusing. Once I successfully used this technique to relieve itching sensation from a minor skin inflammation on my leg, and after that the inflammation has gone away completely by the next morning. So I assume that focusing attention initiates certain processes in the body. I'm researching to find out what exactly these processes are.

Roman Vinogradov
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  • Welcome to Biology.SE. Are you sure it is getting warmer? Did you rigorously measure it with a surface thermometer and comparing before and after focus? If not, then it is possible/likely that the question "why" is based on a false belief that the focus increase the temperature. Without an evidence for the claim, the question should be closed as based on a potentially false belief. – Remi.b Sep 29 '17 at 19:20
  • Hmmm ok I'll have to get a precision surface thermometer to make sure the temperature actually increases and not only my feeling of temperature. Another my suggestion is that the blood flow increases because of deep relaxation of the muscles in the area. If the temperature doesn't change though (which is still a subject to test), there is still a way to relieve pain by concentrating on the source of pain. How is that working at all? And does it only turn off the pain or also helps healing? Has there been any research on this subject? – Roman Vinogradov Oct 02 '17 at 16:17
  • You are all in the field of subjective experience here. If you are already convinced that concentrating on a wound helps reduce the uncomfortable feeling, then it probably will work for you (via the placebo effect). Most of the time people rather attempt to divert their mind from the pain to reduce the uncomfortable feeling. You might get better answers to your questions from a psychologist (see CognitiveScience.SE) than from a biologist. – Remi.b Oct 02 '17 at 16:32
  • Remi.b, psychologists focus on non-bodily aspects, I'd rather focus on the biology of the process here. Actually that's one of the main reasons I started studying neuroscience half a year ago. So from your answers I would assume that your opinion on the subject is that nothing is happening in the body in response to the person's attention, right? Or at least nothing like this has been reliably observed/researched/proved. – Roman Vinogradov Oct 03 '17 at 00:51

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