Social rejection neuroscience has revealed something many already suspect: exclusion doesn’t just bruise the ego, it activates the same brain regions as physical pain.

Research shows that being left out triggers cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, while also lowering a sense of belonging and sometimes sparking aggression (Blackhart et al., 2009).

Chronic rejection is even linked to long-term mental health struggles, including depression and anxiety, as well as physical health risks (Slavich et al., 2010).

Evolution offers an explanation.

For early humans, being excluded from the group meant danger. Without social bonds, survival chances plummeted. Today, the brain’s warning system still interprets rejection as a threat to well-being.

Functional MRI studies show that the anterior cingulate cortex—the same region active in physical pain—lights up when people are excluded from something as trivial as a virtual ball-tossing game (Eisenberger et al., 2003).

But newer findings complicate this picture. Follow-up research suggests the anterior cingulate also responds to surprise or expectation violation, not just social pain (Somerville et al., 2006).

In other words, rejection may hurt partly because it confounds predictions: you thought you belonged, but you were wrong.

Scene One: The Dinner Party

It happens in an instant. You’re sipping wine at a friend’s house when your partner leans over and says, almost casually, “Oh—my ex is here tonight.”

You nod, trying to appear calm.

But inside, your organs fall through the floor.

Every time your partner laughs, you notice who they’re laughing with. The food tastes like nothing. The room feels like it’s shrinking.

That’s jealousy. It barges in, uninvited, pulling a chair up at the table.

We’ve been told loneliness is just a feeling.

An ache you sleep off, or something cured by a night out with friends. But the research keeps contradicting that hopeful little story.

Loneliness, left unchecked, doesn’t just sting—it carves new grooves into our brains, reshapes our personalities, and even leaves fingerprints on our biology.

At this year’s American Psychological Association convention in Denver, researchers from the Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance (TASHRA) presented something bound to make headlines: nearly half of the 672 kink participants they surveyed said BDSM or fetish play gave them “emotional healing.”

That’s the kind of stat that makes reporters type faster and conservatives faint harder.

Trauma transformed into pleasure.

Shame turned into agency. Healing in leather and latex.

But let’s not confuse applause lines with hard data. Let’s slide in…

In Japan, there’s a word for disappearing without a trace: johatsu (蒸発). It means “to evaporate.”

Not evaporate in the mystical sense—no clouds of incense, no cherry blossoms floating down the Sumida River.

Just a person who walks away from their job, their marriage, their debts, their family—and never comes back.

One day they exist, the next they are gone. To their loved ones, it’s as if they’ve been swept from the face of the earth.

And here’s the unsettling part: in Japan, this isn’t an urban myth. It’s a recognized social phenomenon.

What Is Johatsu?

In the U.S., nearly one in five adults will experience an anxiety disorder this year (National Institute of Mental Health, 2024).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 30% of adults have felt anxious or depressed most or all of the time in the past two weeks.

That’s not an individual malfunction—it’s a national work order stamped “URGENT.”

We have meditation apps, employee wellness webinars, and self-help podcasts in every flavor—and still, anxiety rates climb.

Why? Because America has perfected the art of converting structural problems into personal defects, then monetizing the cure.

Office romance is back. The slow migration back to cubicles, open-plan spaces, and conference rooms has revived an ancient workplace tradition: people falling for each other between the coffee machine and the quarterly budget review.

In 2025, nearly half of workers aged 18–44 say they’ve started dating a coworker since returning to in-person work, with Gen Z and millennials leading the way (Business Insider).

They’re less likely than older generations to hide these relationships, less fearful of stigma, and more likely to see work as a legitimate place to meet a long-term partner.

For HR leaders, this means one thing: it’s time to stop pretending workplace romance doesn’t exist, and start managing it more intelligently.

Somewhere between the invention of fire and the invention of the photocopier, humans discovered two things:

1. Food tastes better when you know how to make it.

2. People are jerks about giving you that knowledge.

We like to think of recipes as acts of generosity—gifts, heirlooms, love letters in the language of butter and spice.

And yet, across cultures and centuries, there’s a long tradition of handing someone a recipe… and somehow making sure it won’t quite work.

It’s the culinary equivalent of giving someone driving directions that almost get them there.

Why Do Some Folks Sabotage Recipes?

You may think your cat loves you. Or at least likes you.

But here’s the sad truth of it: your cat is less like a loyal friend and more like that quiet neighbor who waves politely, notes your every move, and files the information away in a mental folder labeled Useful or Not Useful.

It’s not weighing your moral fiber — it’s weighing whether you’re worth standing up for when the tuna runs out.

Cat owners everywhere have wondered: Do cats judge people the way humans do? Or, more pointedly, does my cat secretly think I’m a terrible person? The answer is more scientific (and more selfish) than you might imagine.

Dog owners have been telling this story forever: “Oh, my dog can tell. He growls at bad people.”

It’s a warm, satisfying belief—our furry sidekick as a moral compass, able to sniff out shady motives faster than a human judge. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel both safe and smug.

But here’s the disheartening plot twist: when scientists actually tested whether dogs can judge character, the results came back flatter than a day-old tennis ball.

A new study in Animal Cognition suggests that pet dogs don’t reliably prefer generous humans over selfish ones.

In fact, they might be more interested in which side of the yard has shade than in who’s offering the snacks.

If you were anywhere near a bookstore in the late 80s or 90s, you probably saw The Dance of Anger staring back at you from a shelf — red cover, unapologetic title, and the promise that maybe your frustration wasn’t the problem, but the clue.

Harriet Lerner didn’t just write about anger. She reframed it. And she made sure women — and the therapists who treated them — stopped treating anger like a dangerous leak in the plumbing.

Today, in an era when a 30-second Instagram Reel can pass for “emotional education,” Lerner’s ideas feel more urgent than ever.

Can faith make you kinder to yourself? A new study says yes. But there’s a twist.

According to research published in Pastoral Psychology, Christians reported higher levels of self-compassion than atheists—but also slightly higher levels of narcissism, specifically the kind that craves recognition and admiration. Yikes.

In plain terms? Religious folks may be more likely to treat themselves with understanding and care, but they’re also a little more likely to think they’re morally or spiritually impressive.

If that sounds like a contradiction, welcome to the human condition.