Love Hurts, But Break-Ups Cause Real Pain

Researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered that physical pain and intense feelings of social rejection hurt individuals in the same way.  

            

[Ethan Kross, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan]:       

"When people think about, or experience intense rejection, they may well be experiencing physical pain in their body." 

            

40 individuals who had experienced an unwanted relationship breakup in the previous 6 months, were asked to perform two tasks. 

             

[Ethan Kross, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan]:      

"On one task we had them look at a picture of their ex, and as they looked at the picture, we asked them to think about how they felt during their breakup experience. On another task we actually administered physical pain and the way we did that was by hooking up a thermode to participants' forearm. And this thermode heated up to temperatures that our participants had described to be painful during a previous pilot session."

             

Kross says the team discovered that powerfully-inducing feelings of social rejection activated regions of the brain that are involved in physical pain sensation.

[Ethan Kross, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan]:               

"When people thought about how they felt during this intense rejection experience, regions of the brain that were involved in the sensory experience of pain, so brain regions that become active when people experience painful sensations on the body, also became active when people thought about how they felt during this rejection experience." 

             

That's no surprise for many.  

[Anna Jacobs, Florida Resident]: 

"Breakups are horrible! I'd say it's just about as bad as any physical pain I've ever felt. But the thing about physical pain is you can usually do something, like take Advil or put some ice on it or whatever. In emotional pain, it's just time." 

[Richard McMurrich, New Yorker]:       

"Some of my breakups have been really painful - I would say even more so than some injuries I've had as far as physical pain. Even to the point that I broke down and was in physical pain over the emotional part of my breakup or the loss thereof of the person that I thought I loved and was going to spend the rest of my life with." 

                      

According to Kross, the suffering of a traumatic relationship breakup should be taken more seriously, for those affected could be experiencing the hurt physically.  

            

[Ethan Kross, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan]:

"...we shouldn't trivialize people's reports of being in actual physical pain when they're rejected. It may not all be in their heads, to use that expression, it may well be in their bodies."