Why Rizks and Chin Tu Fat always watch Indian films and cry together …
Watching films releases 'natural painkiller'
Experiments by an Oxford University team suggest tragic films and other dramatic works trigger a rush of feel-good chemicals known as endorphins.
This acts as a natural painkiller and helps us bond with the people around us, they report in the Royal Society journal Open Science.
The human fascination with story telling was forged in ancient times when we began to live in hunter gatherer communities, said Prof Robin Dunbar, who led the research.
"Fiction is widely studied by humanities academics as it is an important feature of human society, common to all cultures," said Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University.
"Yet the reasons why fiction can be so engrossing and the functions for this have not been widely studied by psychologists or behavioural biologists.
An Oxford team of scientists, psychologists and classicists decided to test whether drama triggers the release of endorphins - chemicals that act in the brain to dull pain.
"Those who had the greatest emotional response also had the greatest increase in pain threshold and the greater their sense of being bonded with their group," said Prof Dunbar.
''Watching tragic drama is good for you - it's good for our health,'' she told BBC News.
I’m going to start a QL Film Club, where we can all go together , watch tear jerkers and BOND!
It all depends on your mood at that time if it's emotional you may cry.
WT: Ha! Ha! Really a good one!
But sometimes I ROFL for several hours after reading some of his comments and "advice" and that surely helps in forgetting all other pain.
ROFL WT , true indeed !
britey, which cheap theater were you watching the movie for 10QR ?
Oh I think, you took the watchman seat which is right in the corner of tat exit door...:)
Another method is to read MM's comments. It hurts so much that you will forget all other pain.
And when you laugh your brain releases endorphin. Voila.
WT: I sat in the row behind Rizks at the cinema the other day.. I watched them hold hands and then cry together when the heroine was made to marry someone she did not wish to. As Rizks wiped her tears , I could feel the "bonding" betwen them ..
The 10QR ticket was worth it ..
Some films make you laugh ...
Britey as WT mentioned, think something beautiful...tat doesn't mean you think of your Cuban Shotputter and at the end - you don't release anything....:(
It is not necessary to watch a movie to release endorphin. Just think of something beautiful and you get the same effect. People should learn to control their chemistry with their brain, then they wouldn't need medicine and other useless pharmaceutics.
" drama triggers the release of endorphins"...releasing of endorphins is fine, hope nothing else releases during watching a movie.....:)