There are two types of pain: acute and chronic. We have no control over acute pain, which is evoked from acute injury or illness. Chronic pain, however, is under our own control, but is not understood by modern medicine. It is believed that chronic pain is a complex mixture of emotions, culture, experience, spirit and sensation. Scientists on the forefront of pain management are delving into the possibly that chronic pain is a function of the brain’s memory of damaged nerves rather than the original injury

Try yoga
Practice yoga to manage chronic pain. Yoga is believed to be effective in the management of chronic pain. Studies have shown that persons who practice yoga use analgesics less frequently and have fewer mental symptoms, such as anxiety and depression, than those who do not participate in yoga as a therapy.

Use Local Analgesics
Apply natural, topical analgesics. Topical medications are ointments that are applied to the skin, such as creams or gels or oils. They can reduce pain that is just below the surface of the skin. Ointments containing lidocaine and prilocaine are particularly effective in numbing pain on the surface of the body, such as neuralgia, shingles and joint pain.

Try Hypnosis
Consider hypnosis. Increasingly, it is suspected that chronic pain can be attributed to brain malfunction, or the memory of pain that no longer exists. Scientists are studying the fact that the brain may even cause pain by sending pain signals to nerve endings where no injury exists. Hypnosis is being investigated as a cure for this type of malfunction and curing the pain that goes along with it.

Apply Heat
Applying heat can reduce pain specially when it is muscle pain

Apply cold
If you can’t bear the heat, try applying ice or a cold compress, it will reduce the sensation of pain.

Try Massage
Massaging the area can take most of the pain away

Try some rest
Getting sufficient rest can heal muscle and joint pain. Specially works for back pain.

Use biofeedback
Biofeedback teaches you how to gain partial control over certain physiological processes.
Biofeedback is a non-medical process that involves measuring a subject’s specific and quantifiable bodily functions such as blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, sweat gland activity, and muscle tension, conveying the information to the patient in real-time. This raises the patient’s awareness and therefore the possibility of conscious control of those functions.

Give me your own techniques to lesser pain in the comments !

I have read a few articles around the subjects and i thought the finding were interesting.
When you’ve had a hard workout you may experience muscle pain and the odd adage is telling you that this pain is caused by the buildup of lactic acid in the muscle.
DOMS is not caused by lactic acid buildup in the muscle. This is the myth that refuses to die. Within one hour after exercise, most, if not all, of the lactic acid produced is removed and recycled.
The lactic acid myth was passed fro the scientific community to mainstream because scientist genuinely believed for a long time that lactic acid was the cause of pain.
“It’s one of the classic mistakes in the history of science,” Dr. Brooks said.”
Its origins lie in a study by a Nobel laureate, Otto Meyerhof, who in the early years of the 20th century cut a frog in half and put its bottom half in a jar. The frog’s muscles had no circulation — no source of oxygen or energy.
Dr. Myerhoff gave the frog’s leg electric shocks to make the muscles contract, but after a few twitches, the muscles stopped moving. Then, when Dr. Myerhoff examined the muscles, he discovered that they were bathed in lactic acid.
A theory was born. Lack of oxygen to muscles leads to lactic acid, leads to fatigue.

So what does cause muscle pain ?
Studies show that the vast majority of pain associated with DOMS is caused by the action of stretching muscles ‘Eccentric’, in which the muscle fibers are lengthened as force is applied to them.

Lactic acid is actually a fuel. Muscles make it deliberately, producing it from glucose, and they burn it to obtain energy. The reason trained athletes can perform so hard and so long is because their intense training causes their muscles to adapt so they more readily and efficiently absorb lactic acid.