Why being excluded from a group hurts more than we admit—even after we’ve left school

First of all, cut yourself up a little. We do not grow by magic of feeling left at a certain age. In fact, it can be even more difficult as an adult, a moment when the opportunities to feel included in a group are rare. So when we see a cohesive collective? Of course, We want to be part of it.

More than that, however, that’s how we are wired. “We believe that those who were sensitive to ostracism were an evolutionary advantage,” said Dr. Williams. “If you were ousted, you were going to die. But if you could take it back quickly and change your behavior accordingly, your genes were going to continue in the future.”

Adaptation to avoid this spell could be the reason why we always feel rejection as a punch with the intestine – literally: “There is overlap in the brain between physical pain and social pain,” said Dr. Williams. “We use the same neural architecture to detect and discover both.” Even wilder, some research has shown that people feel better in the face of rejection when they burst the acetaminophen first. (But Dr. Williams calls this more theoretically interesting than practically applicable – Place Tylenol, please.)

Aside from the pain, the psychological effects of the excluded feeling are not a joke either. “This threatens the need to belong,” said Dr. Williams. “This threatens the need to maintain reasonably high self -esteem. He threatens the need to feel that you control your social situation. And it threatens your feeling of being recognized and worthy of attention. ”

All these things are the constituent elements of what Dr. Williams calls “significant existence”. In other words, uh, why wouldn’t you care?

How to soothe the bite to be excluded

So, what can you do with this unsuccessful and (literally) painful experience? To short-circuit the bite, not much, according to Dr. Williams: it is a natural reaction that is difficult to replace, he said. But you can improve responding to negative feelings that inevitably appear.

In the moment, you can focus on making yourself feel better – or at least prevent you from stew. This may look like you focus on your breathing until the initial pain passes, to distract yourself with a good song or a funny video, or to reach out to people (or animals) which TO DO To make you feel supported, explains Dr. Williams.