Can Emotional Pain Physically Hurt?

Have you ever been “broken hearted”? Ever been ‘‘stabbed in the back’’? Or have you ever had your ‘‘feelings hurt’’? Most of us have felt this way at some point … but all of these are just metaphors right? Maybe not!

Before we get into the direct link between physical and emotional pain it is important to recognise why we feel emotional pain in the first place and how this may actually benefit us in an evolutionary sense. When we prick our finger on something sharp we immediately feel a strong and abrupt sense of pain causing us to retract our finger into a safer space. Similarly, when we lose valued social connections we also feel a sense of unpleasantness associated with a pain sensation.

Inclusion in social groups has proven to play an important part in survival in many animals spanning back thousands of years. Therefore, when we are at risk of losing our social connections, our mind and body perceive this as a threat to our safety. This can be seen in the case of monkeys who showed less interest in social contact (as a result of receiving amygdala and other brain site lesions). These monkeys were excluded from social groups and consequentially died earlier than monkeys who were accepted in social groups, as they were not protected by their conspecifics.

While there are obvious differences in physical pain and emotional pain we can all relate to the suffering we experience in response to being rejected, ridiculed or otherwise devalued. In fact, many people have claimed that they would rather be hit than ostracized … so what is going on in our bodies that is causing us to feel this way?

Well a recent study had a group of people who had recently broken up with their partner view pictures of their former partners. While this may seem like a cruel thing to do, some interesting results did come out of it – the same regions of the brain that are activated through physical pain (the secondary somatosensory cortex and the dorsal posterior insula) were activated while these participants experienced emotional pain by looking at the pictures.    

So it seems that similar regions of the brain are activated throughout our experiences of both physical and emotional pain … so does that mean we could potentially take a paracetamol or ibuprofen pill? Well believe it or not this might actually be helpful!

In a study comprised of people who had experienced a recent social rejection, the group was split into two separate groups. One group was randomly assigned to take acetaminophen (a pain relief medication) and the other was assigned a placebo. They were instructed to take their medication daily for three weeks. The results? The group taking acetaminophen reported fewer hurt feelings while taking acetaminophen. Not only that, but when their brains were scanned at the end of the treatment period, they also had less activation in the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex.

This is not to suggest that we should run to our nearest pharmacy any time someone says something nasty. Not only is this research very novel and potentially requiring further substantiation in the medical world, this is not a long-term solution to many emotional struggles. However, it is important to note the similarities between these two types of pain and keep in mind that the two can be interlinked.

So the next time you are experiencing some sort of emotional pain, don’t be too hard on yourself; it can hurt just as much as physical pain can too!