Acetaminophen may reduce fear and anxiety: study
Posted April 16, 2013 11:47 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Feeling anxious or uneasy is common for some folks. But there’s a new UBC study that suggests an over-the-counter drug may help those who suffer from distress.
Acetaminophen which is generic Tylenol may be able to do more than just relieve pain. UBC researchers have a way to calm people who experience social anxiety or those that get into a fight with a partner or boss. Psychology PHD Student Daniel Randles conducted a double blind study and found the group that was given acetaminophen was more able to cope with troubling ideas.
“When people are made to feel uneasy or anxious or they ruminate on certain abstract difficult questions. We see that they like to affirm things that are important to them, but when they take Tylenol that doesn’t seem to happen….and what we think is happening is Tylenol is preventing the person from feeling distress about uncertainty or confusing events or existential anxiety,” he explains.
“Our study suggests these anxieties may be processed as ‘pain’ by the brain – but Tylenol seems to inhibit the signal telling the brain that something is wrong,” he adds.
Now he’s not suggesting to go and pop a pill every day as he says more clinical trials need to be done.
His findings are published in the journal Psychological Science.
