So, last year I spent a good while stuck in bed with a whoppingly herniated disc. That was damn painful — I’d say I averaged 8+ on the pain scale while lying still in the least exacerbating position. That was enough to give me a good case of the stupids. (You know your pain is legit when you’re more clear-headed on opiates than off.) Pretty much all I was able to think about for a while was the pain, and after a while the pain became interesting in its own right in almost an aesthetic way — all its little textures and fluctuations. I noticed a few things.
My skeptic friends like to scoff at the power of prayer, and I’m right there with them with one exception: pain. Pain is weird. I’m willing to believe that, for many people, believing that friendly people are praying for one’s pain relief would reduce pain, just from the enhanced feeling of community and love.
My own experience was that all the support I got from friends actually reduced my pain by a solid 0.5 out of 10. That counts for a lot up in those upper pain registers. I would read words of support on Facebook, or read a book or watch a video that someone had brought for me, etc., and I would literally feel better. Not enough that I’d get up and dance, but enough that I might manage to turn over without steeling myself for five minutes first. It was the damnedest thing.
This may not be entirely surprising, at least if you follow what’s been going on in pain overlap theory. There’s been a fair bit of research in the last few years into what looks like a shared neurological basis of social and physical pain, and it’s been shown in a number of situations that social support can ameliorate physical pain.
There’s all sorts of interesting stuff going on in our pain systems, as it happens; lately it’s come out that taking a dose of Tylenol seems to help people keep from acutely feeling the pain of social rejection. It makes me wonder about all those low-dose daily aspirins that some people take for their cardiovascular health. Could those be enough to protect against some emotional stress as well as inflammation?
Something else helped: kitten videos on youtube. I swear to you, fluffy kittens at play are nature’s own minor narcotic. The Kitten Effect works even when they’re just falling asleep.