Stress is now a normal event in everyone's life. Stress causes psychological strain and now, a new study shows that it can also alter a person's ability to withstand physical pain. A Tel Aviv University researcher found out that acute psychosocial stress can dramatically affect the body's ability to curb pain.
Professor Ruth Defrin of the Department of Physical Therapy at TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine has published her study in the journal Pain. In the study, 29 men were studied and findings show that stress increases pain intensity and it affected their pain coping mechanisms.
Defrin together with Professor Jens Pruessner of McGill University and a doctoral student Nirit Geva conducted series of stress tests on a group of healthy young male adults. They were required to be a part in the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST), an algorithm that is designed to induce psychological stress on the participants.
The MIST entails answering a few test questions wherein they are told that the normal person would have a score of 80 -90%. However, the truth is, no one can score better than 45% and this will cause stress on the participants.
Also, prior to the MIST test, they went through series of tests that evaluated their threshold for heat pain and their ability to cope and modulate this kind of pain. They were divided into groups that were based on their levels of stress measured by the test.
For the findings shown in Science Daily, the researchers found out that participants who experienced increased or higher levels of psychological stress had lower ability to withstand pain. On the other hand, those who had lower levels of stress had more ability to curb pain.
Professor Defrin defined stress as, "Stress is defined as a sense of uncontrollability and unpredictability, precisely like being stuck in traffic where you are helpless and have no control over the situation. Stress can have positive repercussions in a challenging work environment, for example, but overall it has primarily negative effects."
She added that the findings show that, "The higher the perceived stress, the more dysfunctional the pain modulation capabilities became. In other words, the type of stress and magnitude of its appraisal determine its interaction with the pain system."
Nowadays, stress is often associated with a fast-paced and modernized lifestyle. In fact, Prof. Defrin added, "Modern life exposes individuals to many, recurrent stressful situations. While there is no way to predict the type of stress we will feel under different circumstances, it is advisable to do everything in our power -- adopt relaxation and stress reduction techniques as well as therapy -- to reduce the amount of stress in our lives."