I just read a fantastic bit of news today: a Tokyo-based company offers “heartache leave” after a bad break-up with a partner. This paid time off actually increases as an employee gets older, since the relationships (theoretically) get more serious. According to the story, staff aged 24 years or younger can take one day off per year, while those between 25 and 29 take two days off and those older can take three days off. The CEO likens the “heartache leave” to sick leave. At first I chuckled, then I sent it to my HR staff, and then I realized that the CEO had a point: for many, the social pain of rejection is felt physically- just like getting sick or getting into a car crash. How many of us felt the sting of a joke, the pain of ostracism, or the outright agony of a broken heart? These varying levels of “hurt feelings” are not just cliches tossed around between commiserating girlfriends, but also physical experiences rooted in our brain. Work by Naomi Eisenberger Matt Lieberman, and Kip Williams have shown that physical pain and social pain share neural circuitry. They places participants in functional magnetic resonance imagine (fMRI) machines and either included or excluded them from a group computer game. Those that were excluded from the game produced increased activity in the areas previously shown to regulate physical pain (the anterior cingulate cortex and the right ventral pre-frontal cortex for those really interested). What does this mean? For one, it may mean that those with chronic pain also have a harder time regulating social pain and rejection. It also may mean those that are consistently excluded may have an enhanced sensitivity to physical pain as well. Since the areas that regulate these separate types of pain overlap, the pain may overlap as well. Turns out this Japanese company may be acting appropriately in giving their employees necessary time off to recover from their physical as well as psychological wounds.

Further Reading:

Reuters (via Yahoo): Japanese firm gives “heartache leave” for staff

Eisenberger, N., Lieberman, M.D., and Williams, K. (2003). Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion, Science, 302, 290-292.