Larry Flick from Billboard complimented "Feel No Pain" as a "luscious slow jam" and "by far, the album's most accessible cut."

"[4] A reviewer from Music & Media wrote, "Laid back but nonetheless driven, the second single from the Love Deluxe album is not completely painless, because the repetitive bass pattern makes you tap your feet until they hurt, especially through Nellee Hooper's dance remix.

"[5] In a 2017 retrospective review, Justin Chadwick from Albumism described the song as a "percussive" and "compassionate call-to-arms that reminds us to treat the poverty-stricken with the dignity and decency they deserve, while encouraging us to do what we can to ease people's suffering in times of financial turmoil and family upheaval.

Instead of telling the story of a black family trapped by layoffs, poverty, unemployment, and hatred from the third-person, Sade locates herself within its daughter as a first-person narrator.

Her intimation that a society that refuses to support its least fortunate members will end in ruin for all doesn't come off as a sermon, but an experience deeply lived.