By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Most everyone has faced rejection at some point in their lives, such as a divorce, losing a job or being “ghosted” by a friend. Being excluded from a relationship often triggers stress, anxiety, depression and sometimes even a desire for revenge.

Taking the pain reliever acetaminophen ­may not be a prescription for curing the blues, but it can ease social pain and help you forgive others, according to an unusual study published recently in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. The study adds to a growing body of research that suggests over-the-counter pain relievers have psychological effects on humans.

Researchers in California enrolled 42 healthy young adults in a placebo-controlled trial to see if taking acetaminophen has an effect on social pain.

“Research has shown that physical pain and social pain are influenced by some of the same biological processes in the brain and body. Based on this research, we thought that acetaminophen, which is commonly used to treat physical pain, might also be able to reduce social pain,” explained senior author George Slavich, PhD, director of the UCLA Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research.

For 20 consecutive days, a third of the study participants took 1,000mg of acetaminophen daily, while the rest took a placebo pill or no pill at all.

Participants also completed a daily questionnaire that assessed their level of social pain by asking them to think about a person who had wronged them recently. Did they I hope that person “gets what’s coming to them” for what they did?

From their answers, researchers developed a numerical “Hurt Feelings Scale” for every participant.

Over time, researchers found that acetaminophen significantly reduced hurt feelings, but only for participants who had a more forgiving attitude towards others.

“When combined with a tendency to forgive, taking acetaminophen substantially reduced how much social pain people felt over time. More specifically, participants taking acetaminophen who were high in forgiveness exhibited an 18.5% reduction in social pain,” said Slavich. “Based on the findings from our study, it appears as though acetaminophen acts synergistically with peoples' ability to forgive to alleviate the feelings of social pain that are commonly associated with rejection and exclusion.”

Slavich and his colleagues say anger and sadness are normal responses to social rejection, but can lead to long-term health consequences if they persist. However, the researchers stopped short of recommending acetaminophen as a treatment for social pain.  

“Experiencing a socially painful life event, like a relationship break-up, is one of the strongest predictors of developing depression in adolescence and adulthood. Social pain is also associated with decreased cognitive functioning and increased aggression and engagement in self-defeating behaviors, like excessive risk taking and procrastination,” Slavich said.

“Although the idea of prescribing acetaminophen to individuals undergoing difficult interpersonal situations may be attractive, we are not aware of any studies that have shown acetaminophen to be an effective prophylactic against psychiatric disorders for persons currently experiencing socially stressful circumstances.”

Similar Findings in Other Studies

A 2015 Ohio State study also found that acetaminophen seems to dampen human emotions. Student volunteers who took acetaminophen had fewer emotional highs and lows, and were less likely to react to images that normally produce an emotional response, such as pictures of a child crying or happily playing with a cat.

A second study at Ohio State found that acetaminophen can make people feel less empathy for the physical and emotional pain of others.

It’s not just acetaminophen. A review of studies at UC Santa Barbara concluded that ibuprofen and other over-the-counter pain relievers have an overlapping effect on us, both physically and emotionally.

"In many ways, the reviewed findings are alarming," wrote lead author Kyle Ratner, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Santa Barbara. "Consumers assume that when they take an over-the-counter pain medication, it will relieve their physical symptoms, but they do not anticipate broader psychological effects.”

Acetaminophen -- also known as paracetamol – is the world’s most widely used over-the-counter pain reliever. It is the active ingredient in Tylenol, Excedrin, and hundreds of other pain medications. Over 50 million people in the U.S. use acetaminophen each week to treat pain and fever. The pain reliever has long been associated with liver injury, as well as heart, kidney and blood pressure problems.