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

First, cut yourself some slack. We don’t magically grow out of feeling left out at a certain age. In fact, it can feel even tougher as an adult, a time when opportunities to feel included in a group are few and far between. So when we see a cohesive collective? Of course, we want to be part of it.

More than that, though, it’s how we’re wired. “We believe those who were sensitive to ostracism were at an evolutionary advantage,” Dr. Williams says. “If you were ousted, you were going to die. But if you could pick up on it quickly and change your behaviour accordingly, your genes were going to continue on in the future.”

Adapting to avoid that fate might be why we still experience rejection like a punch to the gut—literally: “There’s overlap in the brain between physical pain and social pain,” Dr. Williams explains. “We use the same neural architecture to detect and experience both.” Even wilder, some research has shown that people feel better in the face of rejection when they pop acetaminophen first. (But Dr. Williams calls that more theoretically interesting than practically applicable—put down the Tylenol, please.)

Pain aside, the psychological effects of feeling excluded are no joke either. “It threatens the need to belong,” Dr. Williams says. “It threatens the need to maintain a reasonably high self-esteem. It threatens the need to feel that you have control over your social situation. And it threatens your sense of being acknowledged and worthy of attention.”

All of those things are the building blocks of what Dr. Williams calls “meaningful existence.” In other words, uh, why wouldn’t you care?

How to soothe the sting of being excluded

So what can you do about this inconvenient and (literally) painful experience? To short-circuit the sting altogether, not much, according to Dr. Williams: It’s a natural reaction that’s hard to override, he says. But you can get better at responding to the negative feelings that inevitably pop up.

In the moment, you can focus on making yourself feel better—or at least stopping yourself from stewing. That can look like concentrating on your breathing until the initial pain passes, distracting yourself with a good song or funny video, or reaching out to people (or animals) who do make you feel supported, says Dr. Williams.