Tylenol (acetaminophen) Eases Emotional Pain Too: New Study

Maybe that disgruntled JetBlue flight attendant should have popped a couple of Tylenols. 

A University of Florida researcher says acetaminophen, an ingredient in the popular over-the-counter pain reliever, may relieve social pain from hurt feelings. The findings suggest for the first time that emotional and physical pain are interrelated, said Gregory Webster, a UF psychologist who co-authored the study with a team of researchers. 

"We think that social pain piggybacks onto physical pain and the two systems sort of bleed into each other, so that just as you feel emotional distress from physical pain, the social pain of having a romance breakup or getting a horrible grade can translate into feeling sick to your stomach or getting a bad headache," he said. 

In the study, to be published in the journal Psychological Science and available online, people who took acetaminophen daily for three weeks reported less emotional suffering over time and showed less activity in regions of the brain previously shown to respond to social rejection than those who took the placebo, Webster said. 

"Even so," Webster said, "we don't want to tell people to go take Tylenol to cope with their personal problems until more research is done." 

The findings have the potential for acetaminophen to be used eventually to treat minor social pains instead of more powerful drugs, Webster said. Acetaminophen may also show promise in curtailing antisocial behavior, Webster said. Because research has found that being rejected triggers aggression, using acetaminophen to alleviate emotional distress could reduce the likelihood of destructive actions, he said. 

"The fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) results from our study show that acetaminophen diminished reactivity in regions of the brain that have been linked to emotional processing, which helps regulate aggression," he said.
adamfoxie and: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com