Feeling Rejected? Study Suggests a Tylenol Will Ease the Psychological Pain
Feeling rejected by that cute guy you met at a Christmas party? Get left off an invitation list? No problem, just take a Tylenol. That's the surprising result of a new study
that says you can treat psychological pain the same way as physical pain.
Getting the snub from friends can feel like a slap in the face. Now researchers say treating such social pain may be as easy as popping a pain pill. They warn, however, that more research is needed before anyone tries the approach.
The finding builds on research showing that psychological blows not only feel like they hurt us, they actually do. For instance, scientists have found a gene linked with both physical pain and a person's sensitivity to rejection. And some of the same brain regions are linked with both pain types.
So perhaps it's not surprising that a painkiller would alleviate both as well.
"The idea that a drug designed to alleviate physical pain should reduce the pain of social rejection seemed simple and straightforward based on what we know about neural overlap between social and physical pain systems," said lead researcher C. Nathan DeWall of the University of Kentucky. "To my surprise, I couldn't find anyone who had ever tested this idea."
But DeWall warns more research is needed to firm up the results. "Our findings do not constitute a call for widespread use of acetaminophen to cope with all types of personal problems," the researchers write in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science.
The study involved two experiments involving acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol.
This particular study used acetaminophen, the main ingredient in Tylenol. Two groups of people were psychologically evaluated. Then they were either given a placebo or the painkiller. The subjects played a computer games set up create feelings of social rejection (just the videogame you were hoping to get for Christmas!) while they had their brains scanned.
The painkillers didn't affect overall happiness over time, but those with painkillers felt less pain from being rejected.
