For much of human history, being alone could be dangerous.
Humans survived collectively: sharing food, protecting one another, raising children together, watching for threats, caring for the sick, and passing knowledge from one generation to the next.
Our survival depended on the group. And that history left its mark on our biology.
Social Baseline Theory proposes that the human brain expects access to trusted social relationships.
Rather than viewing other people as an added bonus, the brain treats reliable relationships as resources that help distribute risk and reduce the effort required to navigate the environment.
When those resources aren’t available, more individual effort may be required.
Interdependence is part of how we function.
How other people influence our nervous systems
You may notice there are people around whom you naturally exhale:
- Your shoulders drop
- Your voice changes
- You’re less careful with your words
- You laugh more easily
- You don’t feel the need to perform, predict, or protect
And some relationships do the opposite: you monitor, overthink, tense, prepare, and read into subtle changes in tone.
Your nervous system is constantly picking up cues from the people around you:
- A facial expression
- A shift in someone’s tone
- Eye contact
- Touch
- Body language
- Whether we’re welcomed or excluded
- Whether someone feels predictable or unpredictable
These cues help shape how we experience an interaction: Am I safe here? Do I belong?
And we can see aspects of this through brain imaging.
Researchers studied how holding another person’s hand influenced responses to the threat of a mild electric shock. Participants were studied under different conditions, including holding the hand of a familiar relationship partner or a stranger.
Holding a familiar partner’s hand was associated with less reported distress and reduced activity in brain regions involved in vigilance, threat processing, and regulatory effort.
The findings offer a fascinating illustration of social regulation: the presence of someone we trust can influence how our brains respond to a perceived threat.
Why relationship stress can feel all-consuming
Your nervous system is involved in every relationship you experience.
An argument with your partner.
Feeling misunderstood by a friend.
Growing apart from someone you love.
Wanting more closeness than someone else does.
Realizing a relationship is changing, or may need to end.
These experiences can feel deeply consuming because the people closest to us become part of how we experience safety, connection, and stability.
Research shows the loss, or perceived threat of losing, an important relationship can trigger powerful emotional and bodily responses.
One neuroimaging study found that rejection from an unwanted romantic breakup had overlap with the regions recruited during physical pain.
Relationship dynamics aren’t experienced as detached external events.
Who we spend our lives with, and how safe, connected, supported, and free we feel within those relationships, can profoundly shape our emotional and physical experience.
How regulation changes our relationships
Developing your capacity for regulation can fundamentally change how you navigate relationships.
When we’re chronically activated, we’re more likely to perceive threat, become defensive, react impulsively, or struggle to consider another perspective.
As we strengthen our ability to self-regulate, we create more space to move beyond our immediate reactions, approach conflict with greater clarity, and remain open to connection.
An argument may still happen. A relationship may still need to change.
But regulation changes how you show up within those experiences, becoming something we can offer each other.
References
References
- Social Baseline Theory: The Social Regulation of Risk and Effort (2015)
- Social Regulation of the Neural Response to Threat (2017)
- Research on Relationship Loss and Emotional Responses (2024)
- Social Rejection Shares Somatosensory Representations with Physical Pain (2011)