Sympathy pains are real

rjp / CC

Researchers discovered that people don’t just feel bad for you when you stub your toe — their brains actually react a bit as if they were hurt themselves. Researchers (Stanford University) obtained their findings from studying people’s brain activity while they watched videos of other people being hurt, such as clips of sporting injuries or car crashes. The authors found that similar areas of the brain were activated both when people watched another person getting hurt, and when they got hurt themselves.