Suffering from existential dread? Take a Tylenol

[bananas]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/suffering-from-existential-dread-take-a-tylenol-1.1241384

Suffering from existential dread? Take a Tylenol

(embedded video interview with lead author Daniel Randles)

Andrea Janus, CTVNews.ca
Published Wednesday, April 17, 2013 6:53AM EDT

The next time you’re suffering an existential crisis, the answer may not be to put Morrissey on an endless loop and indulge in a tub of your favourite ice cream, according to new Canadian research. Rather, your doctor may one day prescribe Tylenol to ease your anxiety over the human condition.

<snip>

The study builds on research that has suggested that acetaminophen can reduce the non-physical pain of being ostracized by friends.

For this study, participants took either acetaminophen or a placebo while they performed tasks designed to provoke a sense of existential dread. In the first part of the study, they either wrote about their own deaths or a control topic, and in the second part they were assigned to either view a surreal video made by filmmaker David Lynch or a control video.

<snip>

The researchers suspect that Tylenol is inhibiting the signal to the brain that something is wrong. However, they will only be able to confirm that by repeating the study and scanning the brains of participants as they complete the tasks.

<snip>

There were a number of news stories about this, this is the only one I saw with a news video interview of an author.

The paper can be downloaded free (no registration) at one of the co-authors site: http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~heine/publications.html

*Randles, D., Heine, S. J., & *Santos, N. (in press). The common pain of surrealism and death: Acetaminophen reduces compensatory affirmation following meaning threats. Psychological Science. Full Text http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~heine/docs/TylenolandDavidLynch.doc

[bettyellen]

1. wow, it "reduces compensatory affirmation following meaning threats"

[Demeter]

2. I don't know about that

but enough of it will kill your liver...which means you are dead, too, or in for a transplant.

There are no pills for the human condition except that they end it. What kind of "medicine" is this they re selling?

[SunSeeker]

3. Correct. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is the most common cause of acute liver failure.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/Depression/2233


Drinking alcohol while taking Tylenol is even more dangerous. Taking acetaminophen after a weekend drinking binge can prove fatal. http://www.envtox.ucdavis.edu/cehs/toxins/acetalc.htm

[woo me with science]

4. Slick marketing gimmick.

There's a lot of existential dread going around these days.