Why do sensations such as heartbreak/sadness/anxiety feel like physical pain?
In: Biology
Being in love releases dopamine, and drugs like heroin create the same sort of warm, amazing feelings. So it’s a type of literal withdrawl.
Because we have to feel it physically or else they don’t mean anything…something something Im15andthisisdeep
Basically, these emotions trigger some of the same pathways that physical pain triggers.
In fact, it has been shown that painkillers such as acetaminophen (paracetamol) can actually help reduce social pain such as rejection. [Source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20548058)
Usually, feelings make your body have a physical response, this happens for a bunch of reasons, like a primal instinct of self preservation. They make your body release more hormones like adrenaline and others, and these are the ones that make you feel physical pain amongst other stuff.
When emotions are strong enough they can trigger your fight or flight response. During this blood is pulled from your digestive system/stomach (to prepare to fight or run) and creates a physical sinking feeling in your chest/stomach.
To grossly oversimplify, negative emotions like heartbreak, rejection, and embarrassment, trigger some of the same regions in the brain as physical pain. Specifically, the secondary somatosensory cortex and dorsal posterior insula.
Processing these emotions as if they were physical pain helps your brain teach itself to avoid the feelings in the future.
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