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Painkillers Kill Your Emotions and Numb Your Mind, Study Suggests
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The active ingredient in Tylenol might numb people’s emotional reactions, according to a study conducted by researchers from Ohio State University and published in the journal Psychological Science.
“People who took acetaminophen didn’t feel the same highs or lows as did the people who took placebos,” researcher Baldwin Way said.
Notably, the participants in the study did not realize that their reactions had been affected.
“Most people probably aren’t aware of how their emotions may be impacted when they take acetaminophen,” Way said.
Blunts ability to feel strong emotion
The researchers randomly assigned 82 participants to take a single pill containing either a placebo or acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol), which is the active ingredient in Tylenol. An hour later, participants were shown 40 photographs showing images ranging from sad (such as crying children who appeared malnourished) to neutral (such as a cow in a field) to happy (such as children playing with kittens). Participants were asked to rate each image on a scale from positive to negative. They were then shown the same photos again and asked to rate how much emotion each photo provoked in them.
The researchers found that participants who had taken acetaminophen ranked the photos as both “more neutral and less emotionally intense” than those who had taken a placebo.
The Ohio researchers were curious whether acetaminophen was targeting emotions directly or simply interfering with participants’ ability to judge magnitude, such as the magnitude of emotion. Therefore, they repeated the study with another 85 participants, and this time they also asked the participants to rate how much blue there was in each photo. Once again, the participants who took acetaminophen ranked the photos as more neutral and less emotionally intense than those who took a placebo. There was no difference in how the two groups perceived the magnitude of blue, however.
Source: http://truthisscary.com/2015/04/painkillers-kill-your-emotions-and-numb-your-mind-study-suggests/
