Love Study: Brain Reacts To Heartbreak Same As Physical Pain

[dr-awale]

Love hurts, and that is not just a saying for the broken hearted. Heartbreak is a very strange distress. It is exquisitely painful, and yet we cannot find an injury on our body. New research finds that when you reminisce about the one that got away, the brain actually triggers sensations that you also feel in times of "real" physical pain, making heartbreak truly, physically painful to add to the emotional distress it sometimes causes.

Heartbreak is like one big emotional pain but it also seems to spark off hundreds of other emotions. We hate the feeling of heartbreak, and yet we find ourselves compelled to go over and over memories, ideas or fantasies which make the feeling worse.

Edward E. Smith, director of cognitive neuroscience at Columbia University explains:


"This tells us how serious rejection can be sometimes. When people are saying 'I really feel in pain about this breakup,' you don't want to trivialize it and dismiss it by saying 'It's all in your mind.' Our ultimate goal is to see what kind of therapeutic approach might be useful in relieving the pain of rejection. From everyday experience, rejection seems to be one of the most painful things we experience. It seems the feelings of rejection can be sustained even longer than being angry."

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/220427.php