These days, many of us are all too familiar with the sensations of worry and anxiety — the physical sensations, I mean. First comes the worry (it can be about anything), then after a while a headache or neck pain sets in or maybe a queasy stomach… and even chest pain — which all, of course, only increases our anxiety. It’s obviously all connected, but I have to say it was a surprise to me when a string of studies revealed that there is an important overlap in our brains between emotional and physical pain… and that acetaminophen (Tylenol), which is of course used to relieve headaches and other physical ailments, helps reduce emotional pain. Could this garden-variety painkiller actually be a happiness drug?
The initial studies on the emotional/physical pain overlap were conducted at the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences and published in 2010. They followed 62 volunteers who took either 1,000 mg of acetaminophen (the equivalent of one dose of Extra Strength Tylenol) or a placebo daily — and who reported their emotional states on a “Hurt Feeling Scale” (a self-assessment tool widely used by psychologists to measure how a person reacts to such potentially distressing experiences as teasing or being criticized). As the three-week trial progressed, the acetaminophen group reported that they were less inclined than normal to have hurt feelings during regular day-to-day activities, while the control group reported no change. This prompted the study researchers to want to look more closely at the neural mechanisms behind such findings, so they set up another experiment using 25 different volunteers who took either 2,000 mg daily of acetaminophen or a placebo, again for three weeks. At that point, participants played a computer game rigged to make them feel socially rejected and isolated while a scanning device (functional magnetic resonance imaging) monitored their brain activity in two areas where it is already known that physical pain is processed — the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula. The scan revealed that feelings of social rejection activated the same areas of the brain as physical pain does… and, as added evidence of an emotional/physical pain overlap, the brains of participants taking acetaminophen showed less activity in those “hurt” brain areas and these participants reported feeling less troubled by rejection than the control group.
Now comes a new study from the University of Michigan that goes even further. While undergoing MRI scans, subjects viewed photos of former romantic partners and were asked to think about the pain of their breakups. Then, while still be scanned, they wore an arm device that created pain similar to the sensation of hot coffee being spilled on their skin. According to the researchers, the MRI results showed that the activity in the two areas of the brain mirrored each other. Romantic relationship expert Geoff MacDonald, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a coauthor of the Kentucky study, said that scientists have known that some of the same regions of the brain handle both physical and social pain. But now they have evidence that the brain doesn’t appear to distinguish clearly between the pain from spilling hot coffee on yourself and the pain of a bad love affair!
Discovering that acetaminophen can dull emotional pain is of course the fascinating finding of the research, but Dr. MacDonald says the more important message is that emotional pain, like physical pain, is serious business. “It is easy to put aside touchy-feely stuff as less important, but it can literally kill people,” he says — because humans depend on social connections for their survival. So it is not surprising to learn that the brain would perceive social rejection — i.e., not belonging — as a threat to well being. As Dr. MacDonald points out, physical pain protects people by warning of risk (within the environment or within the body), and social pain has an analogous function. His advice: In spite of the research findings, Tylenol is not the answer to help you get you through a rough emotional patch — it can wreak havoc on your liver and digestive system if used routinely. Instead, stop and think about the kind of damage emotional hurt can do, and take real action to correct what is causing that psychic pain.
