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Bending is a technique used to increase the pitch of a note by increasing the string tension. It involves pushing or pulling a resonating string towards the string sides of the fretboard while maintaining contact with the fret, sliding the string up or down against the fret.
== Half, Whole, and Other Bends ==
== Pain ==
The first thing a beginner may notice is that bending ''hurts''. Yeah, that's going to happen. A beginner usually doesn't have strong calusses on his finger-tips yet. Simply fretting the thinner strings may irritate the skin. The additional tension of a bend will surely hit some nerves. Just keep at it - within a short amount of time, your finger tips will toughen up, and you won't feel any pain at all.
That said, if the strings are cutting your fingers to the point of bleeding, you should stop playing. Let your fingers heal before trying to play again, and don't push yourself to the point of injury. If that means only doing 1/4 or half bends for now, stick to that. You'll notice your finger tips get harder and less sensitive over time. It's good to test your boundaries but not to purposefully exceed to the point of injury.
== Bend Up or Down? ==
Should you bend the string up towards the sky or down towards the ground? To some degree you will have to master both ways. The high and low E strings are too close to the edge of the fretboard to perform even a simple half-bend in that direction. So you're going to have to bend the high E (1st string) upwards and the low E (6th string) downwards. Otherwise, it's whatever is most comfortable to you. I find both ways about equally comfortable.
Some techniques, such as double-stops often bend one of the strings. If you are bending the lower bass string, you will need to bend upwards to avoid accidentally muting or otherwise interfering with the higher treble string note. And vice versa.
So practice both ways.
If your action is very low, it may be difficult to prevent the adjacent string(s) from sliding down your finger tip and getting fretted. You may find you have to bend upwards vs. downwards (pull vs. push), or you have to work on your technique to compensate for this. If your action is very high, you may find your fingers slide completely underneath adjacent strings. So long as they aren't rubbing your fingers in a way that hurts or damages your skin, that's fine. Just make sure they don't hook onto your fingernails, because when finish the bend, it's very likely that the adjacent string(s) will pop off your nail and sound, just like if you plucked it.
Another thing to notice is that for big bends towards the middle of the fretboard, you may start pushing on 2 or more adjacent strings. For example, doing a double bend on the B string at the 12th fret might push into the G ''and'' D strings. This will add increased tension to the bend making it more difficult. I don't find this is a serious problem - you just have to push harder. If you find it a problem, you should try to develop a technique where you can force your fretting finger(s) under those strings, so that you don't have to push them (as much).
== Reinforcement from Other Fingers ==
The bend itself seems to tell a story - all the movement from one pitch to the next has more content than simply playing two notes.
== Tuning ==
Bending puts more tension on the strings, which causes them to stretch. You'll often notice after a session of bending on a certain string that it is now a bit flat and out-of-tune. You can reduce this by thoroughly breaking-in a set of new strings, by bending them heavily at multiple points on the fretboard. This will stretch them out and help them develop more elasticity. However, there is no perfectly elastic string - heavy bending will cause the string to go out-of-tune. For live situations, you should try not to bend one string much more than the others - spread the love. And maybe back away from extreme bends.
You can learn to tune on the fly, using a tuner that is always on. After a heavy bend, take a look at it when you are sustaining a fretted note. If it says you are flat, give the tuning peg a small, quick turn. If you get good at this, you can tune during the middle of a solo!
Also, thinner strings require less tension to tune to pitch. This means bends don't put as extreme of an amount of tension on such strings, and they may stay in-tune better for heavy bending.
The only other solution I know of is to get an Evertune bridge, which detects and manipulates the tension of each string to keep it in-tune.