Brain study suggests that distractions ease dread - The Boston Globe
In the first high-tech exploration of the biology of ”dread,” researchers at Emory University found that even before the shock was administered to a person’s foot, activity appeared in one of the brain’s pain centers. In particular, dread activated a part of the brain having to do with attention to pain, implying that distraction — like watching TV — helps reduce the dread.
Human’s perceptions of fear and pain are very ingrained emotions, so while the researchers were surprised to find that the anticipation of pain was in the rear of the brain rather than the front, I’m not sure most researchers would share that surprise. Avoidance of pain has been shown for decades to be a very core behavior in mice and humans. Nobody likes pain.
So yes, distraction as a technique works very well to help people keep their minds off of upcoming pain and to avoid the dread associated with fear. All this study did was pinpoint where in the brain this effect occurs. It really has no impact on people’s current or future treatments when undergoing painful procedures or such in medicine. But it does contribute to our general understanding of how the brain processes pain and pain anticipation.
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Links to This Article
swissreplica4 (1/15/2007)
My Job: A Description of Failure | Amitai Givertz’s Recruitomatic Blog (1/1/2008)
2 Comments to
“Brain study suggests that distractions ease dread”
Actually, although the study footnotes a different study that evidently had
something to do with distraction involving hypnosis, this study had nothing to do with distraction.
A single sentence in the report has been blown up, apparently by the NY Times
article that used “Distraction” in the headline.
This study measured activity in various parts of the brain during a study that
involved waiting for shocks. It shows interesting things about which parts of
the brain “light up” with different groups of people who have different reactions
to waiting for shocks.
This study did not test any means of relieving dread. It did not test
“distraction” in any form as a means of relieving dread. This is a perfect
example of irresponsible reporting of “empirical” studies. Nothing wrong with
the study - it just had nothing to do with testing “distraction” as a cure
for “dread.”
Dread is the emotional fear of the past, and the fear the past will occur again.
Dread is the outcome of an Initial Sensitizing Event(s).
I have seen Abreaction, Desensitization and Emotional Reframing change dread and other emotions in a short period of time, many times, less than 30 days. The individual who ruminate in emotions of the past, many times has more than one such experience, where these multiple experiences are compounded and cannot be identified individually without deep relaxation - Otherwise known as Hypnotherapy.
I offer this as an alternative to drugs and long term psychotherapy.
I learned this information after Mother’s Suicide. This was not learned by my choice, or career development. It was learned in the best way, to change anger and rage to love and joy.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 8 May 2006
