To feel abandoned by community, to fear the opprobrium of others, triggers a physical assault on the body. You may have heard statistics like loneliness is worse for you than obesity or smoking. Medical professionals, like Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general of the United States, say social isolation acts like a disease or an injury, crossing from psychological state to physical malady. The mechanism is evolutionary; our brains know we need our groups to survive. So when we feel cast out of our group, it triggers a massive stress response throughout the body:
