Could Sartre and Camus have found relief from their existential anguish in a bottle of the pain reliever hospitals recommend most?
Researchers from the University of British Columbia are arguing the answer may, in fact, be yes. In a study published in the journal Psychological Science, they found that acetaminophen could demonstrably reduce the feelings of angst people experience when thinking about their own deaths.
Participants in the double-blind study were given either Tylenol or a sugar pill. One group was then told to write about what would happen to their body after they die, while another group was instructed to write about the nagging discomfort of dental pain. Finally, all of the subjects read a prostitute's arrest report and were instructed to set appropriate bail.
The dental pain group set fairly low bail amounts—about $300, on average—while those subjects who got sugar pills and wrote about their body after death were much harsher, setting bail at about $500. The Tylenol-poppers who wrote about their deaths, however, were much more lenient in their bail-setting, suggesting to researchers that their “existential suffering” was at least somewhat alleviated by the drug.
