14 DAY TRIAL // Apparently, you can actually suffer from a broken heart following a breakup, at least according to a new study. The paper explores the connection between social pain and physical pain, and finds that the link is a lot stronger than anyone thought.
Dr. Naomi Eisenberger, the author of the paper, believes that one of the main factors providing a basis for this relationship is the fact that rejection is a very strong, negative experience. It could be that its intensity is what causes physical harm in many individuals.
Scientists have also determined that both physical and social pain are, in fact, processed by the same areas of the brain, which may explain whey they are integrated, and thus experienced as a whole.
“I think [that the pain of rejection is] probably there for a reason – to keep us connected to others,” PsychCentral quotes the researcher as saying. Eisenberger is an associate professor of psychology at the UCLA.