For decades, it is believed that "sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you".
However, the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted a study on Friday, revealing that pain caused by emotional distress is more deeply felt and longer lastingthan that caused by physical injuries.
An international team showed that a broken heart really hurts, in mostcases. Lead author Dr Kip Williams, quoted by The Daily Telegraph, said that both types of pains can hurt very much at the time they occur, but the social pain has the unique ability to come back over and over again, while physical pain lingers only as an awareness that is was indeed was painful at one time."Why aren't we always suffering pain by recollections of social betrayal and other forms of social pain?
Because we are pretty good at keeping these memoriesat bay," he said. Dr Williams of Purdue University in the United States and colleagues at Macquarie University and the University of New South Wales in Australia have based their findings on an analysis of four experiments.
For their study, the researchers recruited volunteers who were asked to relieve their past painful experiences just by writing in detail what had happened and how they had felt.
