I think that many people are unable to tell the difference between pain from damage and pain from soreness. My wife seems to have that difficulty and apparently has caused more serious problems for herself by not resting when she has gone too far.

On the other hand, she will sometimes not give anything a chance to be worked through. I sometimes have a sharp pain in my foot when I start a brisk walk, but I have learned over many decades that this particular pain will go away during the walk and will not flare up after. She won’t do anything when she has something like that.

My guess is that our respective brains see pain differently. What I see as true injury that needs rest, she sees as a challenge to work through and hurts herself more, but other things that I’d try to work through signal her to stop.

People are different.