I read an article today on ScienceDaily that discusses the physical and empathetic pain and how it is thought to work. To quote ScienceDaily; "Imagine you're driving a nail into a wall with a hammer and accidentally bang your finger. You would probably injure finger tissue, feel physical distress, focus all your attention on your injured finger and take care not to repeat the misfortune. All this describes physical and psychological manifestations of "pain" -- specifically, so-called nociceptive pain experienced by your body, which is caused by the stimulation of pain receptors. Now imagine that you see a friend injure him or herself in the same way. You would again literally wince and feel pain, empathetic pain in this case. Although you yourself have not sustained any injury, to some extent you would experience the same symptoms: You would feel anxiety; you may recoil to put distance between yourself and the source of the pain; and you would store information about the context of the experience in order to avoid pain in the future." This was interesting to me because I have seen so many injuries growing up from people getting broken bones, serious cuts, and other hardcore injuries, but I myself have only broken fingers, toes, and an arm.
The article shows a photo (also shown above) of someone cutting a fruit with the blade pressed firmly against their fingers as if they are about to cut themselves. This photo is meant to try and induce a type of empathetic pain. As I looked at the image I did not start to feel pain on my finger but I did react in one way that they mentioned. I tried to distance myself from the image mentally. I tried my best not to imagine how it would feel. Some people react the same way I act, and some act worse feeling the pain and imagining how it would look,
This article does not bear much importance or anything that is game changing in the biological fields, but it gave me a perspective and an insight as to how people may study this sort of topic. The article was something I could relate to which is why I wanted to talk about it.
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