Experts have found that breakups, especially a difficult, unexpected one, can burrow deep into our subconscious. Everyone knows they hurt, but science shows they can alter our bodies as well as our minds.
Dreamstime/TNS
Fourteen months after a debilitating breakup, I realize things need to change.
So I recently embarked on a research journey. Heartbreak, I discovered, is a subject of scientific inquiry, with researchers plumbing the effects and mysteries surrounding a loss. Heartache is no longer just the purview of poets. Perhaps by talking to these researchers, I reasoned, I could deal with my own heartbreak.
Experts have found that breakups, especially a difficult, unexpected one such as my own — we’d been living together less than a month — can burrow deep into our subconscious. Everyone knows they hurt, but science shows they can alter our bodies as well as our minds.
“People suffer,” said Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist who has done extensive studies on heartbreak. “And they suffer for a while.”
More than 400 days after the breakup, I continue to stew on it, analyze it, grieve it. I also haven’t had more than three consecutive hours of sleep since the fall of 2022. That’s not completely unexpected, say researchers.
“Heartbreak,” said Guy Winch, who has written multiple books on healing and heartache, “is one of the most painful experiences we go through as people.” No wonder he called heartbreak “a form of disenfranchised grief,” and one society does not take seriously.
His words brought momentary relief, partly because extended heartbreak brings with it a sense of shame and isolation.
I have no shortage of friends who have shared tales of tragedy they view as more significant than the dissolution of my engagement. So much so that I started to think I was abnormal. Fisher assured me I wasn’t. Simply “moving on” — a rite of passage that can involve some combination of therapy, ice cream, binge watching, alcohol and time — is a myth.
“We’ve been able to prove that when you are rejected in love, you are in an addicted state,” Fisher said. How addicted? Fisher said heartbreak activates the same region of the brain triggered by, say, heroin. These areas of the brain are active when we’re happy in love, too, and can remain on high alert long after a separation occurs.
Researchers studying heartbreak also found activity in a brain region that registers physical pain.
Whew. I am normal, after all. I’m also, say experts, in danger.
“Physical changes in your body are real and they are happening,” said Florence Williams, author of “Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey,” a lauded text on the subject. “If we don’t recover from heartbreak, we will get sick. Urgency is critical, because healing does not just happen.”
Looks like I’ll need more than ice cream.
No simple answers
“You got it bad,” David A. Sbarra, a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, wrote to me.
That wasn’t an official diagnosis, but considering Sbarra has made heartache his primary field of study for more than two decades, it carried weight. He’s published multiple papers that link divorce with health risks, including an elevated chance of early death. I wanted to know if the past 14 months of my life had potentially shaved a few years off it.
There’s not a simple answer. “Psychological stress,” said Sbarra, can wreak havoc on multiple parts of the body. But Sbarra assured me I was within the “normative range for adaptation,” or the expected time it takes to get back to normal, which can be up to two years for a particularly painful separation.
But Sbarra also pointed to a study that found that ruminating incessantly over a breakup can lead to long-term lack of sleep and increase one’s resting blood pressure.
Addiction or something like it
Not all researchers are comfortable with the addiction phrasing. Grief researcher Mary-Frances O’Connor is one, and the neuroscientist and psychologist recently released the book “The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn From Love and Loss.” Her preferred term is “yearning,” likening the need for loved ones to hunger and thirst.
And if the person we thought we would spend the rest of our life with is suddenly removed, we are going to crave that person, and think about little else. This is when Fisher gave me some tough love.
“Throw them out,” she said of the photos of us in a hidden folder on my phone. “If you want to give up alcohol, you don’t keep a bottle of vodka on your desk.” And if I couldn’t toss the photos, I should stop looking at them. “All you’re doing is re-traumatizing yourself.”
Let’s run with the addiction metaphor. “One of the things that we’ve historically done with addiction is to try to get people off heroin and onto something else that feeds the addiction but is less toxic,” said Steve Cole, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine. Cole wonders, then, what is the methadone equivalent for a broken heart?
For many, it’s jumping back into the dating pool, the so-called “rebound.” But this is risky. As Cole puts it, you’re still living the heartbreak, and while individual results will vary, I found attempts at dating left me feeling empty, reinforcing the idea that my ex is indeed the love of my life.
Healing a broken heart
It may be possible to accelerate the healing of a broken heart.
Williams theorizes we can speed up our heartbreak recovery by about 25% or 30%. That’s worth it, especially “if it’s going to keep you from having an autoimmune disease.”
Williams gave me a three-pronged prescription.
The first recommendation? Calm.
“Get your body out of fight-or-flight, which is where it is when you feel abandoned and afraid of the future. You are hyper-vigilant. Calm down, however you do that, whether it’s through video games or yoga or taking hot baths.”
Video games, yes, but also music. I dedicate a portion of most every day to listening to an old or brand new record.
The second? Connection.
“That can be connecting to nature, which it partly was for me,” Williams said, “but also connecting to other people who care about you and who you care about.”
The third? This can be a little more abstract. We must, said Williams, find a sense of purpose, especially if, like me, the relationship became your purpose.
“What meaning can you make?” Williams said. “You have a reason to get out of bed every day, and you feel you have a contribution to make.”
