Tackle Rejection Like a Champ 💊
An unusual randomized, double-blind study suggests that Tylenol is an effective way to get over rejection.
Hey all! Here’s another edition of Lesser Tedium, a version of Tedium that we hope you won’t reject. Want more content like this? Subscribe over this way.
Let me preface this by saying that pop science tends to lead to questionable roads. If you aren’t wearing your skeptic’s hat when reading Psych Central, for example, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
But last fall, I caught wind of a study so unusual that I had to tell people about it. Basically, it goes like this: A few years back, researchers at the University of California-Davis and Iowa’s Luther College conducted a small-scale test to determine the effects that acetaminophen (a.k.a. Tylenol) would have on your ability to manage social pain—particularly rejection.
The results, published in 2019 in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine under the expansive title ‌Alleviating Social Pain: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Forgiveness and Acetaminophen, relied on a small sample size of just 42 participants, but (as the title suggests) utilized a highly controlled setting and was supported by prior research that connected acetaminophen and rejection.
And wouldn’t you know it, the study results found that it worked:
Consistent with prior studies linking forgiveness and acetaminophen to reductions in social pain, the present data revealed that exhibiting a more forgiving attitude toward others and taking acetaminophen together reduced levels of social pain over time. Based on these data, we conclude that acetaminophen helps alleviate social pain, but these effects may be evident only for individuals who cultivate forgiveness in their lives.
So, yes, in case you’re wondering, there is research into the idea that if you feel like you’ve been rejected—maybe you were passed over for a big promotion or are smarting over a breakup—you might want to take the very same medicine you might use if you have a headache.
But only if you have forgiveness in your heart.
» Wanna learn more? Check our roundup about rejection from last fall. Take a Tylenol beforehand.