Popping painkillers may ease emotional pain

WASHINGTON - Maybe that disgruntled JetBlue flight attendant, Steven Slater, who stormed out of his job recently following an argument with a passenger, should have popped a couple of Tylenols, a pain reliever.

A 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 University of Florida 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. 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, scheduled for publication in the journal Psychological Science, 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 a placebo.

“We don’t want people to take Tylenol to cope with their personal problems until more research is done,” Webster said, according to a Florida release.

“But the findings have the potential for acetaminophen to be eventually used to treat minor social pains instead of more powerful drugs. Acetaminophen may also show promise in curtailing anti-social behaviour,” he added.