EVER FEEL LIKE your heart has been ripped out? That might not be just a metaphorical concept.

When you suffer physical pain, it is registered in the anterior cingulate cortex in the brain.

“Surprisingly, it’s the same region of the brain that’s activated when you feel excluded or experience the loss of a social relationship,” say the folks at AsapSCIENCE.

They explain how social bonds became an important part of the evolutionary process – they can literally mean the difference between surviving or not. As a result, the body and brain has developed to register emotional pain as being as important a cue to note as that of physical pain.

If we didn’t feel the need to be ‘included’ – in a relationship, romantic or otherwise – the social bonds would be weakened and our race would be under threat.

Watch more about the physical reaction to an emotional stimulus here – and how to make it better:

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