Emotional Pain Is Remembered More Than Physical Pain And Has More Effect On Your Behavior.
We all know the saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”, but just how much truth does that statement hold? Physical pain is easy to identify and, depending on the case, easy to fix; it stares us in the face, waiting to be confronted. But emotional pain is not so forthcoming. A person could be in emotional pain and not even know it. It is even possible to be slowly spiral into a depressive episode and have no idea until rock bottom is hit. Emotional pain, both past and present, creeps its way into our subconscious and settles there, spreading its roots.
According to psychologist Guy Winch, people remember emotional pain more than physical pain because emotional pain triggers memories, while physical pain does not (or at least not to the extent that emotional pain does). For example, when you remember a time you were physically hurt, say a time you sprained your ankle, you do not typically experience a phantom pain where you were hurt. However, when you remember a time that you were emotionally hurt, you actually re-experience that emotional pain. This is not to say that an experience of physical pain such as a traumatic event cannot also cause emotional pain and in turn cause a false sensation of pain where the injury occurred. Most commonly, stress can cause physical pain such as cramps, tension headaches, etc.
The same is true of any emotional state or pain. A person can actually die of a broken heart. According to Dr. Radhakrishnan Ramaraj, intense emotional distress can cause a fatal heart condition known as stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome. So how exactly does emotional pain affect our behavior? Our emotions play a large part in how we feel and act, which is referred to as the mind-body connection. After suffering emotional pain such as heartbreak, how many of us have said that we can’t eat or sleep? There are many ways in which emotional pain affects us.
How emotional pain/trauma affects our behavior according to Lawrence Robinson, Melinda Smith, M.A., and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D:
- Difficulty sleeping (insomnia)
- Change in or loss of appetite
- Feelings of sadness and/or loneliness
- Feeling on edge or agitated
- Mood swings
- Aches and pains
- Difficulty concentrating
An article written by Chris Irvine titled Emotional pain hurts more than physical pain, researchers say reports that in 2008, researchers Chen, Williams, Fitness, and Newton published a paper titled When Hurt Will Not Heal: Exploring the Capacity to Relive Social and Physical Pain. Chen et al., found that not only is emotional pain “as real and intense as physical pain,” but all participants reported feeling more pain when recalling times of emotional pain. The researchers gathered student participants in separate studies, one at Purdue University in the U.S. and the others at Macquarie University and the University of New South Wales in Australia. The students were asked to relive/recall a moment of physical pain and emotional pain that happened five years ago. There were a set of four experiments; the first two consisted of the participants being “asked to relive both emotional and physical pain, answering a series of questions and then recalling in detail an experience of physical injury, or an experience of betrayal by a person who was close to them, or both.”
Participants also had to record how long ago the event occurred, how much the experience had hurt at the time it occurred, how many times the person had discussed the event and how much the experience hurt at present. The third and fourth experiments consisted of the participants being asked to recall/relive an emotionally painful event and a physically painful event as in the first two exercises. However, after these participants relived the events they were asked to complete cognitive tasks with varying levels of difficulty. All four experiments yielded the same result; emotional pain had more of an impact than physical pain.
It should be noted however, that since these studies took part in only America and Australia and only students were used (the mean age was 21), it is not clear how the information applies across culture and age, making the applicability of the results somewhat limited. But, the studies were conducted by a group of collaborating researchers/scientists, which helps to prevent bias and human error. There is information on the first study available, which was conducted at Macquarie University. Researchers gathered 61 students consisting of 14 males and 47 females ranging from the ages of 18 to 50, with the mean age being 21. To “measure” the pain, researchers had the participants fill out the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) which is “a 78 item self-report questionnaire intended for the psychometric assessment of pain syndromes” (Chen et al). It can be seen that emotional pain does have a significant affect on our behavior.
We remember emotional pain more, perhaps because of how personal it feels. Emotions are powerful and more internalized, rooting themselves in our subconscious mind. Was there ever a time when you experienced emotional pain that had more of an impact that physical pain? Do you find that you remember emotional pain more? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
References:
Chen, Z., Williams, K., Fitness, J., & Newton, N. (n.d.). Ancillary Information from: Chen, Z., Williams, K. D., Fitness, J., & Newton, N. (in press). When hurt won’t heal: Exploring the capacity to relive social and physical pain. Psychological Science. Study 1. Retrieved from http://www3.psych.purdue.edu/~willia55/Announce/Social_Pain_Study_1.pdf
Irvine, C. (2008, August 28). Emotional pain hurts more than physical pain, researchers say. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2639959/Emotional-pain-hurts-more-than-physical-pain-researchers-say.html
Ramaraj, R. (2007). Stress cardiomyopathy: Aetiology and management. Postgrad Medicine Journal, 83(982), 543-546. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600114/
Robinson, L., Simith, M., & Segal, J. (2014). Emotional and Psychological Trauma. Retrieved from http://www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/emotional-and-psychological-trauma.htm
Winch, G. (2014, July 10). 5 Ways Emotional Pain Is Worse Than Physical Pain. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201407/5-ways-emotional-pain-is-worse-physical-pain
Other Useful Resources:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/05/06/a-pain-detector-for-the-brain/
http://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/brain/2013/01/25/emotional-distress-similar-to-physical-pain-in-brain/
http://www.vrp.com/stress/the-physical-manifestations-of-emotional-stress
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