The words “heartbreak” and “painful breakup” are not a metaphor at all. Breaking up a relationship with a loved one is experienced by our body as an acute physical pain. That’s why painkillers like aspirin help with unrequited love.
A friend or girlfriend wakes you up with a call in the middle of the night to pour out his soul – they are having a hard time ending a painful romance. “Take two aspirins and call me back in the morning” is the best answer you can give. It sounds mocking, but researchers of social pain (it includes any situations when we are rejected or terminated with us, for example, in love, friendship, work, play) are serious: ordinary painkillers really reduce the pain of a broken heart.
In an experiment by Columbia University professor Water Mischel, participants who had just gone through a breakup were asked to look at a photo of a former lover/lover and focus on the thought of being rejected*. At this time, their brains were scanned using MRI. Then the same participants were subjected to physical pain – strong thermal radiation was directed to the area of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbthe forearm, which felt like a burn. They did an MRI again.
It turned out that the experience of physical pain and the experience of pain from a broken heart activate the same areas in the brain – the secondary somatosensory cortex and the posterior insular lobe of the brain. That is, our spiritual wound hurts just like a physical wound, for example, from a burn. Scientists decided to go further: if the pain is of the same nature, then ordinary painkillers, like aspirin or ibuprofen, should help with a broken heart?
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- A. Lowen “Sex, love and heart”
In a study at the University of California, participants were divided into two groups: one took painkillers every day for three weeks in a row, the other took a placebo. Participants, unaware of whether they were taking painkillers or placebos, had to track situations of social rejection in their lives and the level of pain they experienced. Those who took painkillers reported a significant reduction in mental pain around the 9th day of use – and the effect lasted until day 21, the last in the study. Those who took the placebo did not notice any change.
In another experiment, a group of volunteers first took a pain pill or a placebo for three weeks (again, the participants did not know which one), and then they were asked to play the computer game Cyberball. In it, they were deliberately rejected – virtual playmates ignored them, not letting them near the ball. An MRI showed that those who took painkillers for three weeks perceived the exclusion from the game and the boycott much less painfully than the rest.
Another medicine that helps to cope with mental pain when we feel that we are not loved is the thought of those to whom we have been strongly and for a long time attached. Instead of hurting your soul by looking over and over at a photo of the person who rejected you, keep close to you photos of loved ones that you love and who you are sure love you back. They will help to overcome the pain – otherwise it will not let you forget about the past.