A recent study showed that cognitive dissonance (experiencing information that conflicts with how we act or believe) can cause physical pain.
The study states that the mental distress caused by cognitive dissonance can lead to increased strain on the neck and lower back.
A team of researchers from The Ohio State University and the University of Michigan in the United States have gathered criticism of the volunteers after they were told they were good at lifting weights.
The results showed that the greater the degree of cognitive dissonance, the greater the load on the upper and lower spine, neck and lower back.
The results suggest that cognitive dissonance may be a previously unidentified risk factor for neck and lower back pain, which may have implications for risk prevention in the workplace, where we need to be aware of how psychosocial stressors and cognitive dissonance in particular can harm physical health.
Researchers have realized that pain involves a complex interaction between body and mind. But it took decades before the “biopsychosocial” model of pain really caught on after it was first described in the 1980s.
Pain is a powerful combination of physical, social and psychological stressors, meaning that it can manifest itself as a result of physical stress combined with financial stress and mental illness.
However, much of the research to date has focused on the coexistence of chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and catastrophe propensity (thinking that the worst will happen or that nothing will change).
William Maras, a biomechanics researcher at Ohio State University and executive director of the Spine Research Institute, and his colleagues wanted to understand whether another psychological factor, cognitive dissonance, is involved in back and spinal pain.
Think of cognitive dissonance as the psychological turmoil that occurs when you try to reconcile multiple seemingly incompatible beliefs. Difficulties can cause distress, which makes us seek some kind of psychological comfort.
Marras and his colleagues designed a series of experiments to see if this psychological discomfort manifests itself physically, similar to how depression and anxiety can exacerbate pain.
“To get to this mind-body connection, we decided to look at how people think, and in the case of cognitive dissonance, where people are disturbed by their thoughts,” explains Maras.
In a lab study, 17 volunteers were tasked with moving a lightweight box into a precise position while wearing motion sensors to measure the stress they placed on their spine and back.
At the beginning of the experiments, they were told that they were moving correctly to protect their backs. But then the feedback became more and more negative, and the participants were told that they were not doing the task satisfactorily.
Comparing participants’ discomfort ratings with mechanical loading (mechanical resistance) on the spine, the researchers found that peak spine loading increased by 10 to 20 percent when people were distressed by negative feedback, compared to when they felt good at the beginning. tasks.
“This increased load on the spine only happened under one condition, with a fairly light load. You can imagine how it would be with more complex tasks or higher workloads,” explains Maras.
In other words, repetitive psychosocial stressors can increase pressure on the spine, leading to pain, although this remains to be tested.
Source: Science Alert
