While simply acknowledging physical pain doesn't make it go away, making a conscious decision to be curious about the pain seems to help. Instead of flinching away from the pain and trying to avoid it, I ask myself, ”what does this experience of pain feel like?” and direct my attention towards it. This usually at least diminishes the suffering, and sometimes makes it go away if the pain was mild enough.

Have you heard of MBSR? I'm doing a course in mindfulness meditation at the moment and what you said above seems to fit very well with the techniques thought to us in the course.