A Broken Heart is a Broken Bone.

If your brain believes it, it is so.

“The highest happiness is when one reaches the stage of Liberation, at which there is no more suffering. That’s genuine, lasting happiness. True happiness relates more to the mind and heart. Happiness that depends mainly on physical pleasure is unstable; one day it’s there, the next day it may not be.”

― Dalai Lama XIV, The Art of Happiness

The brain makes no distinction between social rejection and physical pain. Did you know that? Literally the brain knows no difference between a broken bone and a broken heart. In 2003, Naomi Eisenberger conducted a landmark study referred to as the CyberBall experiment. Eisenberger was curious as people often describe rejection and heartbreak in metaphors such as:

“It felt like a slap in the face.”

“It hurt my feelings.”

“I was crushed.”

Could there really be a correlation between physical and emotional pain?

In the CyberBall experiment participants wore a vrheadset and saw themselves in avatar form along with two…