When you experience Rejection, Brain feels the pain.

by Nidhi Dahiya October 13, 2020, 6:01 pm 37 Comments

Article Contents

When you experience Rejection, Brain feels the pain.

Recently, one of my friends purposed a girl. For him, it was not a piece of cake but he could do it after taking months. And sadly, it didn’t work out. He was being told by the girl that – let’s just be friends.

He was hurt. That’s completely understandable that rejection hurts, no matter if it’s getting turned down by someone you love or by your job interviewer. It can sting an individual’s feelings, his or her self esteem takes a hit.

Most of the times, people can handle rejection as it can’t stop them from putting themselves out there.

How our brain reacts to rejections?

Scientists did fMRI scans of the people and asked them to play a ball-tossing game on the computer with two other individuals.

After a few rounds, the participants were excluded by the players. These fMRI studies revealed that the pain a person physically feels activates different regions in the brain, one is related to the physical sensation of pain, a somatic component and other is an effective component which is related to physical pain.

When the participants got rejected, brain regions activated and supported the affective component but didn’t support the physical-sensation component.

What happens in our brains?

Another study took place, people who had a painful breakup were put under the machine to take fMRI scans while staring at an image of their ex and thinking about the rejection they got. Again the regions of the brain activated or you can say, same regions activates when an individual goes through a meaningful rejection.

How the Mindful Brain Copes With Rejection?

To manage the rejections, few interventions are needed. Mindfulness is a psychological process in which a person pays attention to and awareness of their present moment. If you are more mindful in your day to day life then you tend to handle rejections in a better way. Practising mindfulness can reduce aggressive nature towards social rejection.

Recently, a study was conducted by Alexandra Martelli, the team examined whether some particular brain networks explain why mindful people are good at coping with rejection. They focused more on an area of the prefrontal cortex that expertise in inhibiting negative emotions. The team tried to find the link between the VLPFC and regions of the brain that produces negative emotions such as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala.

Participants filled validated questionnaire to find out how mindful people are. Around two weeks later, MRI of these participants was conducted to measure their brain function. When the task was over, fee-related questions were asked. Consequently, mindful people were less stressed after experiencing rejection.

Conclusion

We all go through some of the other sorts of rejections. But not losing yourself between this mess helps you to move on. Rejection hurts, but you can only heal yourself. If you are depressed, you must be living in past, if you are anxious, you are living in future and if you are at peace then you are mindful. Be mindful and move on.