By Melanie Nava Urribarri
The heart has always been the bearer of our emotions. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Greek philosophers including Plato and Aristotle believed that the heart’s dominant role in the body was controlling love and strong emotions such as anger and pain. Over time, they expanded the role of the heart to hold sovereignty in all human processes including human emotions, cognition and awareness.
The search for the secrets of the heart isn’t new and neither is the need to understand heartbreak on a deeper psychological and physical level.
The term ‘broken heart’ was first recorded in the mid-1500s, used by evangelical author George Joye. There’s even a medical condition called ‘takotsubo cardiomyopathy,’ or simply broken heart syndrome,’ first described in 1990 in Japan.
The reasoning for its nickname? According to Harvard Medical School, the condition is a weakening of the left ventricle—the heart’s main pumping chamber—which typically results from severe emotional or physical stress. This stress doesn’t only include physical illnesses but loss and grief as well.
However, in reality, it’s not the heart itself that is in control of these reactions—it’s the brain—and you are its victim.
Heartbreak isn’t only an emotional and symbolic experience—it’s a physical one. It’s the brain that regulates your emotions in the midst of messy breakups and 2 a.m. crash-outs over your situationship that hasn’t texted you back. You aren’t only feeling the effects of that inexplicable chemistry with the one you desperately want to think is your person—you are also feeling the effects of your own brain chemistry and neural pathways that create patterns based on physical reactions.
Dr. Brenda Lee, a psychologist based in Vancouver, explained the reason behind these reactions.
Even if change is positive, it’s still stressful and it’s a shock to our system
Lee pointed out a dissonance created between two realities—the loss of the positive emotional states we have with a person and the negative emotional state of the breakup.
“A break up is sudden and separating yourself from those habits can be quite tough. It takes a transition period generally,” said Lee. It’s a “jarring” psychological experience from the start, she added, highlighting the loss of a significant connection in our lives.
According to research published by the National Institute of Health, relationship breakups are consistently ranked as one of the biggest stressors that people experience in their lifetimes.
Lee shared that stress hormones, like cortisol, are released when going through a high-stress experience. The large and constant influx of these hormones can make the body and brain perceive itself as being under threat, potentially triggering a fight, flight or freeze response. She further explained that this brings certain changes within your body as an involuntary sympathetic nervous system (SNS) response.
As explained by the Cleveland Clinic, the SNS is one of two divisions in the autonomic nervous system, which controls many bodily functions without conscious thought. The SNS specifically rises when you’re stressed, in danger or physically active. It redirects oxygen-filled blood to areas of the body that need it during intense physical activity, leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure, slowed digestion and enlarged pupils.
When the SNS is in a constant increase of activity during a stressful period, these symptoms can deteriorate one’s physical health.
Adding another perspective, Lee described how the stress experienced during a breakup can additionally mirror that of an addiction withdrawal.
This is the path of least effort
“The release of [chemicals like] dopamine and oxytocin, do help foster closeness and help foster reward when we’re interacting with someone,” said Lee, “It’s a similar chemical pathway that we would see with addictions and addictive behaviours.”
Allison Abrams, a licensed psychotherapist, wrote in Psychology Today how a breakup neurologically mirrors withdrawals specifically from drugs like heroin. Illustrating that, research from leading Chinese universities, including a study titled Romantic Love vs. Drug Addiction May Inspire a New Treatment for Addiction, has found through the usage of brain scans that the same areas of the brain are activated during heartbreak and drug withdrawal.
Lee added that this is one explanation of why people may often want to return to their partners following a breakup. She explained that combining withdrawal symptoms with the challenges involved in breaking a habit creates a significant hurdle. As a result, the dysfunction of a relationship can feel more comfortable than initiating change because the brain associates a particular person and behaviour with chemical rewards.
“This is the path of least effort,” said Lee.
In the past, Lee’s research has focused on cyberstalking behaviours post-relationship breakups. She clarified that it can be a problematic pattern having to do with the difficulty of letting go and the combination of a burst of behaviours seeking that chemical reward. “It’s kind of poor coping with change, poor coping with kind of emotional difficulties,” she said.
“Even if change is positive, it’s still stressful and it’s a shock to our system. And so it will always take time for us to re-establish a baseline.”
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