Let us start by first taking a quick look into the past at how pain made its way in the human psyche. Pain is a simple evolutionary trait developed to help us stir away from potentially threatening circumstances, an emotion that warns us that something should not be repeated.

Pain receptors are activated with tissue damage — signals transmitted travel up to the spinal cord, releasing neurotransmitters to the brain, warning it that a response is needed. It is not difficult to understand how a physical injury triggers pain; however, pain is not mutually exclusive to injuries. Emotional pain can also affect our physical bodies. 

In a recent article, Alan Fogel, Ph.D., explained how “physical and emotional pain have similar neural signatures; there is a single neural system to detect and feel pain, regardless of whether it is emotional or physical.” Physical and emotional pain are so closely related that we can trick our brains into “swapping their identities.” A study done by Nathan Dewall, a psychology professor at the University of Kentucky, found that acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol) is capable of relieving emotional pain.

While the brain does not treat mental pain and physical pain in the same manner, neural pathway experiments revealed a significant correlation between the two. There is a link between brain region and emotional/corporal experience; every single emotion prompts a physiological response from our body.

Due to the proximity of the brain’s area responsible for pain and the premotor area, we observe a real psychological expression happen in the body. The anterior cingulate cortex and the insula are also involved in the “production” of “both kinds” of pain. These two regions are connected to the vagus nerve, responsible for involuntary reactions and overseeing major organs like the heart, lungs and gut.

This is the underlying reason for those uneasy sensations we experience in our torso, chest and abdomen.

The sympathetic nervous system is, just like the vagus nerve, behind involuntary reactions. This section of the autonomic nervous system, located in the chest area, is behind some primary bodily functions.

The ones we are going to focus on are heartbeat and breathing. When activated, these nerves brace the body for distress by increasing the heart rate and increasing blood supply to the muscles.

Thoughts of insecurity and anxiety can induce the breath and heartbeat to fall out of their synchronicity, startling the sympathetic nervous system as though we are in danger, generating that heavy-hearted feeling in our chest.

This abstract form of discomfort is also referred to as “social pain,” resulting from social rejection. Most of us experience this kind of pain after, for instance, a breakup or being denied a job, etc.

The brain literally hurts when processing rejection; it takes a bigger toll on our bodies than physical injury. There is a mind-body connection that produces a reflexive reaction. When we feel mental pain, we enter a negative state of high self-awareness on inadequacy. Bakan, an American psychologist, views pain as “an awareness of disruption” that causes perturbation and turmoil within an individual.

In a society where social media is such a prominent aspect of our daily lives, we are even more susceptible to emotional afflictions. Social rejection, in this case, can be as little as not getting as many likes in a picture or being unfollowed by a particular someone.

We interpret the lack of positive reinforcement by others as a personal failure, and so does our brain. Since humans are social by nature, disapproval from the surrounding society essentially goes against our character, in a way. Yet, most of the time, our coping mechanisms are worse than the problem itself.

All this is ultimately rooted in how we perceive ourselves as individuals; as humans, we tend to have a slightly more inflated sense of self-importance and prioritize ourselves. After all, 80 percent of our thoughts are about ourselves (concrete statistical evidence of our narcissistic tendencies).

Therefore, someone who has a God Complex might experience a stronger emotion than someone with low self-esteem because it directly contradicts their own self-image. However, mental pain has individual meaning, making the subject of psychological distress extensive with infinite variables.