| Happy Sunday, everyone. I noticed an interesting phenomenon. In many traditional healing systems, there's a concept known as "like supports like." There are tons of examples from history and science: Early hominids eating ruminant brains, a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids and a probable trigger for the expansion of the human brain. Brain supports brain. Arctic Natives preferentially hunting moose with enlarged thyroids, harvesting the thyroid glands, and doling it out to the women to prepare their thyroid function for pregnancy. Thyroid supports thyroid health. Animal joints being a great source of collagen, which is good for joint health. Joints support joints. Liver being a great source of choline, which is a vital nutrient for liver health and function. Liver supports the liver. Heart being a great source of CoQ10, a nutrient that helps the heart generate energy and has been used to treat heart failure. Heart supports the heart. In Chinese medicine, they'll often suggest that people with kidney issues consume kidney-shaped foods, like kidney beans. Even something that resembles a kidney supports the kidney (supposedly). This kind of thing interests me. It catches my eye. And I think it goes much further. I think there are patterns of deep alignment running through the universe. For instance, acetaminophen is a well-known pain reliever. Millions of people take it every day, and it pretty clearly works for reducing pain. But does it only reduce physical pain? Does it only make your sprained ankle stop hurting, or can it affect our perception of different forms of pain? Turns out that acetaminophen also blunts emotional pain. It takes the sting out of emotional injuries, like in this study where people were exposed to social rejection. Those who had taken acetaminophen before the exercise didn't learn from it. Those who had taken placebo learned from rejection. After a few times getting rejected, they predicted that any subsequent approaches would also be rejected—a normal response. They learned from the rejection and modified their behavior. Not so in the acetaminophen group. They got rejected and yet continued to predict success. The normal social-pain learning effect was abolished in the Tylenol group. Acetaminophen even blunts the empathy we feel for others experiencing pain. Another study exposed subjects to people in another room receiving painful sound blasts. Those who took placebo felt empathy for the people feeling pain. Those who took Tylenol did not feel empathy. Eating heart is good for your heart. Blocking physical pain blocks other types of pain. Alignment. What other examples of this sort of alignment between otherwise different things can you think of? Let me know in the comment section of New and Noteworthy. | 