Does it really break your heart? What happens in the brain during a breakup? how to handle this situation? An expert answers.
What happens in our body and mind when we go through a relationship breakup?
When creating an emotional bond, there are two essential things that we must mention. The first is an important hormone known as oxytocin, vital in establishing an emotional bond, the second element is the so-called dopaminergic reward system, basically, it is that part of the brain that is related to the search for pleasurable and motivating elements. . Kisses, nice messages, caresses, gifts, having sex, all this has to do with these two elements.
When for some reason the other person is not there, we enter a state of alert. Something happened, the other is not available and the alarm is activated in our body, this mobilizes us to look for where he is and call his attention again. We see this in relationships when the other person does not answer messages, when they do not arrive at an appointment on time, when we see that they share more with another person than with ourselves, and that is when the little red light comes on that tells us that we have to do something.
This light bulb involves two hormones, adrenaline and cortisol (responsible for making your heart beat faster, as well as breathing; it causes tremors, stomach pain, all that we can call anxiety or stress). Not all of us experience it the same, but I think that at this point we can familiarize ourselves with this scenario.
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Now, when the situation is a couple breakup, where we will most likely never share with this person again, the little red light goes on, and we feel that there is no way it can be turned off, but all is not lost, little Little by little, the brain can change and adapt to the fact that this person will no longer be around, it can even adapt to creating another bond (simply falling in love again and starting with another person).
On a psychological level, it is common for recurring thoughts to come to us about that person, about the things we shared, about the difficulties there were, it even seems that everything reminds us of it! A song, a scent, a word. As Karol G says: “but if they play the song for him, he gets depressed.” It is something natural, that happens when we share valuable time with someone (also with our friends or family) because the job of our mind is to create associations, like a kind of machine that shoots glue left and right, sometimes we are not even aware of that we have associated many things with that person. For example, it may happen that our mind associates “stability” and “having a future” with our partner, if we go through a breakup we lose stability and the future, and our mind may interpret that those words no longer apply to us nor will they ever do so again. do never ever, maybe it has happened to you, and it is not easy to face it, many people go through this, we will return to it later.
Does our heart literally break?
As we mentioned above, the warning light is on. That is the key to understanding why we feel what we feel, we already mentioned the sensations that accompany the alarm signal, however, since it is a prolonged state, it seems that something is breaking, that is how it feels.
In reality, it is that the heart is not breaking in a literal sense: it is not tearing, it is not bursting, it is just working much faster than normal. It is a metaphorical sense in which we use this expression “my heart broke”, there is even a condition known as ‘broken heart syndrome’, which is triggered by experiencing stressful situations or very intense emotions, such as ending a relationship. , and although its use is not restricted solely to this, this condition can be discussed with many other types of stressful events.
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Can you die of love?
What do we mean by dying of love?… suffering a heart attack after finding out about infidelity? Give your life and everything you have and are for each other, no matter what the cost? That a person can exercise violence in a romantic relationship? It depends from where you see it. The elevated stress response can cause cardiac difficulties, but it is a matter of probabilities.
Giving everything for the other, or in other words, not establishing a limit between my needs and the needs of the other can cause various difficulties in the couple, in our mental and physical health. Ignoring our needs for the well-being of the other is not the best alternative; a healthy relationship in which both develop as people requires that the needs of both be met. Sure, there will be times when one party may not be able to meet the needs of the other, yes, it happens to all of us, but if this is the common denominator in the couple, well, don’t be surprised when the difficulties begin.
According to data collected by the Ideas for Peace Foundation in 2015, 47,248 cases of intimate partner violence were recorded in Colombia during 2015, with women being the population most affected by this type of violence (86.66% of the total cases ). Yes, violence can occur within a couple, and yes, there can be a fatal outcome
How to survive a breakup?
You have to understand that many uncomfortable sensations will appear. All of this is natural, given the circumstances, there is nothing wrong with you, it is part of the response of human beings to such a stressful and difficult event to face. Psychologists call this type of situation ‘grief’, in this case, grief for the loss of a partner.
Something that we usually think about these feelings of discomfort is that we should avoid them at all costs. “You must always think positively,” “you must not let yourself be affected,” “you must be strong,” “you must not cry about it” are phrases that have surely been said to us, or that we have even said to others in In these types of situations, the truth is that there is nothing wrong with experiencing those moments, with feeling down, with crying, with it hurting, of course it hurts! If you stub your finger by mistake it’s probably going to hurt, it’s the same here. Accepting that these sensations are part of a breakup, and that it is natural to feel dejected is the first step in this process of adapting to a new stage in life without this person.
Grieving is like being a tightrope walker who is passing between two buildings, and he carries a pole to help him do so. On the one hand, there is everything that reminds us of the loss and on the other hand there is everything that does not, all the activities or emotions that are not related to it, and that can make us feel very good. Going through grief requires balancing both, allowing ourselves to experience those unpleasant sensations and also not forgetting to do activities that make us feel good, valuable and comfortable. If we focus only on one part of the pole, we will not be able to cross this rope and we will probably fall.