For Pain Relief: Schadenfreude or Altruism, It's Your Choice

It's futile to focus on eliminating pain; relief comes from focusing outward.

Updated July 16, 2025 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

Altruistic behaviors may come at a cost, but they relieve physical pain, Dr. Yilu Wang reported in 2020. Dr. Wang's research documented that altruism affects specific regions of the brain to decrease pain. Altruism sets up positive feedback loops, and the effects are durable.. Schadenfreude —feeling pleasure from observing others' suffering—also provides pain relief, but the effect is short-lived, destructive, and addictive. (1)

The Body’s Natural Pain Relievers

Along with anxiety , anger and schadenfreude are part of a survival triad, reactions that stimulate actions to keep us alive. Suppressing any one of them creates havoc with the body’s chemistry and fires up repeated unwanted thoughts. We avoid anxiety because we feel vulnerable. Anger is a mixed matter: We tend to avoid it because it is so dark, powerful, and disconcerting, yet it’s so empowering compared to anxiety that we often don’t want to give it up. Additionally, there is a component of dopamine , which makes it addictive.

The feeling of pleasure derived from observing another’s suffering (2) that is schadenfreude activates the same pleasure circuits in the brain as addictions do. We gravitate to it as a primitive pain reliever. However, the more morally developed you are, the more abhorrent it feels, and so you attempt to suppress it. In the wild, it is much simpler: Anxiety is a warning of danger; anger compels us to solve the problem by any means necessary; schadenfreude means a competitor for resources has been taken down, and there's more access to those resources. There is some measure of relief and better odds of survival.

Schadenfreude or Altruism

Schadenfreude is our default pain reliever, and it activates the same pleasure circuits in the brain as addiction . Schadenfreude is contingent on envy , a common emotion arising from the constant competition for resources, both for survival and enjoyment. Envy activates pain circuits and intensifies chronic mental or physical pain. At a minimum, you focus on other people seemingly having a better life than you. The more intense the envy, the greater the schadenfreude effect.

While activating and deploying schadenfreude, which emanates from lower regions of the brain, offers pain relief, there is an effective alternative that involves higher brain centers—altruism, or giving to someone without expecting anything in return.

The groundbreaking research by Dr. Wang et al. demonstrates that altruistic behavior not only feels morally good but also reduces physical pain. Across multiple rigorous studies involving blood donors, laboratory participants, and cancer patients, the researchers have consistently found that people who help others are rewarded with measurable pain relief, often within minutes of their acts of kindness.

Using advanced brain imaging, the scientists discovered that altruistic behavior activates the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), a region that processes meaning and significance. The activation of the VMPFC dampens activity in classic pain-processing areas, including the anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral insula. The more meaningful participants found their helping behavior , the greater their pain relief, suggesting that purpose, not mere distraction, drives the effect.

Most remarkably, brain scans showed that the intention to help others created a preemptive analgesic state, before any painful stimulus was applied. The brain prepares to suffer less when we’re focused on helping others.

Traditional approaches to pain relief focus on eliminating the pain, trauma , or problem(s)—essentially battling what we don’t want. Fixing darkness is a losing battle. Healing comes from turning on the light, rather than fighting darkness.

When people directed their attention toward helping others instead of managing their suffering, their brains automatically shifted from pain-focused to meaning-focused processing. This isn’t positive thinking or denial —it’s neurological transformation through purpose.

Schadenfreude: The Dark Side of the Coin

Like altruism, schadenfreude leads to pain relief, but there is a crucial difference. With schadenfreude, the relief is temporary and comes at a very high cost: It often leads to cynicism , social isolation , and moral distress over time. Altruistic pain relief correlates with increased well-being, social connection, and life satisfaction.

Moreover, altruism creates positive feedback loops; helping others often leads to gratitude , social bonds, and opportunities for further meaningful engagement. Schadenfreude creates negative cycles of judgment, competition, and interpersonal toxicity. Since the pain relief delivered by schadenfreude is short-lived, the emotion must be engaged in frequently. Interestingly, altruism, in providing long-lasting relief, doesn't engage addictive circuits in the brain and builds character.

The Practical Revolution

It is not difficult to integrate meaningful volunteer opportunities, peer support activities, and community service into treatment protocols. Even simple activities, like calling a friend, doing small things for your family, or helping someone mow their lawn, count. No matter how small the action you take, you’ll feel better.

The study conducted with cancer patients showed that something as simple as cleaning common areas for wardmates (versus for yourself) produced significantly greater pain reduction over time. The same physical activity, but with altruistic intention, literally changed brain function and subjective experience.

The altruism-analgesia connection reveals something fundamental about human nature: We are neurologically wired to feel better when we contribute to others’ well-being. This isn’t mere sentiment but biological reality. Our brains have evolved to reward behaviors that benefit the group, creating a natural alignment between moral action and personal healing.

Social connection also stimulates the release of oxytocin , a potent anti-inflammatory hormone .

If social connection and altruism are powerful ways of feeling better, why do we so often gravitate toward schadenfreude? Perhaps it is when we react with frustration that we don’t feel like reaching out, even though reaching out can also break the anger cycle. Anger dims the activity of the higher thinking centers; energy is concentrated on survival, not philosophy . Therefore, an essential step in accessing altruism, the more sustained source of pain relief, is to calm down enough to think clearly and make better choices.

In a world often focused on individual achievement and problem-solving, this research demonstrates the profound healing power of connection and service. When we shift from asking “How can I feel better?” to “How can I help others?”, our nervous systems naturally transition from reactive survival modes to creative, generative states.

The implications extend far beyond pain management to encompass depression , anxiety, trauma recovery, and other chronic illnesses. The prescription is simple: To heal ourselves, we must turn our attention toward healing others. Oddly, altruism isn’t as altruistic as it sounds, but it works!

To have a good life, you must live a good life. It takes practice.

Wang Y, et al. Altruistic behaviors relieve physical pain. PNAS (2020);117:950-958. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1911861117
Takahashi H, et al. When your gain is my pain and your pain is my gain: Neural correlates of envy and schadenfreude. Science (2009); 323: 937. Doi: 10:1126/science. 116504
Carter, Sue. Sex, love, and oxytocin: two metaphors and a molecule. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 143 (2022) 104948. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104948

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David Hanscom David Hanscom is an orthopedic spine surgeon who now teaches methods for solving chronic mental and physical pain. His newest book is Calm Your Body, Heal Your Mind: Transcending Pain, Anxiety, Anger, and Repetitive Unwanted Thoughts.

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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.