Heartbreak: Why It Feels So Achy Breaky

This episode explores the science of heartbreak, examining both its emotional and physiological impacts.

1. Heartbreak activates brain regions associated with physical pain, illustrating the real pain of emotional distress.
2. Avoiding triggers that remind you of past relationships can aid in recovery.
3. Negative reappraisal of the ex-partner can lessen emotional pain.
4. Time naturally diminishes the pain of heartbreak, as shown in both human and animal studies.
5. Engaging in personal joy and self-care, like dancing or therapy, is crucial for healing.

1: Introduction to Heartbreak

The episode begins with personal heartbreak stories and an overview of its universal impact. Wendy Zuckerman: "Today, we're pitting facts against falling out of love."

2: The Science of Heartbreak

Exploration of how heartbreak affects the brain and body, with insights from neuroscience studies. Lucy Brown: "Heartbreak lights up areas of the brain associated with physical pain."

3: Strategies for Moving On

Discussion of methods to mitigate heartbreak's impact, including lifestyle changes and psychological techniques. Wendy Zuckerman: "Stay away from heartbreak triggers to speed up recovery."

• Avoid places and things associated with your ex to prevent emotional relapse.
• Engage in activities that bring personal joy and avoid those that were shared with the ex.
• Consider therapy or journaling to process and move past persistent thoughts of the ex.
• Reconnect with personal interests and social circles to rebuild a sense of self and community.
• Allow time to heal the emotional wounds, recognizing that recovery is a gradual process.

Getting your heart broken sucks — and for some of us, it even feels physically painful. So why does it hurt so bad? And what can science tell us about how to get over it? We dive into all of this with neuroscientist Prof. Lucy Brown.

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Lucy Brown, Annabelle

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Wendy Zuckerman
Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to science versus today on the show, we're pitting facts against falling out of love as we tackle heartbreak. Science is about to help us with one of our most universal experiences, getting dumped.

So let's meet Annabelle. She's a science versus listener, and she told us about her big heartbreak. It all started when she was in college. I was a sophomore, he was a junior, and it was a total meet cute. It was the first day of english class, and they were told to chat to someone new for an icebreaker.

Annabelle
So I just turned to the person behind me, and he was sitting right behind me. And it was one of those, like, oh, my gosh. Like the world slowed down. I felt like butterflies. I was like, oh, hello.

Wendy Zuckerman
They hit it off. And after that, they made a point of sitting next to each other in every class. And the more Annabelle learned about this guy, the more she started falling for him. They started setting up some study dates that turned into real dates. She remembered one where everything felt so perfect.

It was a day at the ballgame. He was a big Angels fan. I'm a big Dodgers fan. And so that was a cute little, like, oh, man, my team's gonna get your team. No, I'm gonna win.

Annabelle
And it was so fun. It was just. It was a beautiful day. I was happy and laughing. He was happy and laughing.

And just. I'm like, this is like a country song, I guess, you know, like, taking my girl in my truck to my baseball game. And I was like, ugh, I love this. I was like, they're gonna write love stories about this. And, okay, I gotta say, the sex was really great.

Wendy Zuckerman
At one point, Annabelles boyfriend went to study abroad in the Netherlands. She visited him. And during that trip, they had a blast. But then the trip is over. It's time for Annabelle to go home.

She's packing up her stuff, and it's all sad. And it's here where something kind of strange happens. So he asks her if she'll take some gifts back for his family. I was like, yeah, sure. Is there anything else you want me to pack?

Annabelle
And he's like, well, I have a journal. It was a red journal. It's the brand moleskine. Moleskine. Oh, moleskine.

Wendy Zuckerman
Yes, yes. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, a deep red moleskine. He hands me the journal, and he's like, oh, but I don't know if I want you to read it or not. I was like, huh?

She packs the journal, gets on her flight. And as soon as she's back in the US, Annabelle is desperate to hear from him. Yeah. So I race home, I open up my laptop, I see an email from him, and he's like, I hope you made it home safe. I had a great time.

Annabelle
Can't wait to see you again. And about the journal, I decided I will let you read the journal. And I was like, okay. He goes, but it's going to be hard for you to read. And there are some pages that are circled, and if they're circled, that means that's really going to be hard for you to read.

Wendy Zuckerman
What? Clearly, he planned it ahead of time, right? Yeah. He's like, but I don't want this to change anything between us. After you read it.

Annabelle
I read the journal. He's saying that I'm a party girl, that I'm a stoner. I did forget to mention that during his time in Europe, there was this girl who kept popping up. And I was like, I don't. I don't.

I don't really like her. She seems to be a little flirty with you. And he was totally gaslight y of like, no, no, she's not. You're just imagining it. Well, shockingly, in the journal, find out he likes her.

He's wanted to date her. What the. What the. Had he circled those bits? Did he know they would be hard for you to read?

Wendy Zuckerman
Oh, yeah. Those were the pages that he circled. Yeah, he just. He was calling me a bitch. What?

Annabelle
And he was writing a negative entry about me when I was there visiting him. When I was done reading it, I threw the journal so hard across the room that it hit the wall and the spot the spine of the journal broke off.

Wendy Zuckerman
A week later, they met on Skype, and it was done. And even though she knew he'd done this super dicky thing, she was so. Heartbroken, he would start replaying things of, like, well, what if this was different? What if I did something different? I'm feeling this pain, and I'm so sad and, like, I should stop being sad.

Annabelle
Why am I so sad? This is not normal. But it wasn't just feeling crappy in her head. She was in physical pain. She could feel this heartbreak through her whole body.

Wendy Zuckerman
There was, like, a tightness in my. Chest that lingered for a while and in my gut, so much so that I did kind of lose an appetite for about a week where even my friends were like, girl, you gotta eat. So Annabelle was a mess. And of course, when it comes to heartbreak, she is not alone. In fact, when we reached out to you guys, our listeners, we heard so many stories of you being so terribly heartbroken.

People saying they just felt so bad. Like, just quickly. Here's another listener that we'll hear from today, Matt. He'd been totally in love with his boyfriend, and when it finally ended, he just felt so awful. I just remember I physically hurt, like, my heart and my chest hurt.

Matt
It was hard for my brain to understand, like, why am I physically hurting so much? That's so cliche. I'm like, ugh. Ugh. Like, you're just another country song.

Like, get over it.

Wendy Zuckerman
So today we're going to find out what is happening in our brains and bodies as we are down in the dumps. And critically, what can science teach us about how to get over our xs and get back to that? Thank you. Next happy place. Several years ago, we first dove into the science of heartbreak.

But today, we've updated the science, and we're dipping our toes back in. When it comes to heartbreak, there's a. Lot of this is not normal. But then there's science.

Science. Best break is coming up just after the break, the heart break.

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Wendy Zuckerman
Welcome back. Today, we're finding out what science can tell us about heartbreak. And we wanted to start with what is happening in our brain when someone stomps all over our heart. So for this, we need. My name is Lucy Brown.

I'm a neuroscientist. Lucy is a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and she did this groundbreaking study on our brains, on heartbreak. But she said that when her colleagues first found out that she wanted to study heartbreak, there were a lot of haters. Neuroscientists said, oh, it's too messy, too much emotion. You can't study it scientifically.

It seems magical. We said, oh, we think maybe we can. And so Lucy and a few colleagues took a crack at it. Their idea was that if you put heartbroken people into an MRI machine, maybe you could see heartbreak in their brains. Like perhaps their brains would light up in some unique way.

Wendy Zuckerman
So first step, the heartbreak squad needed a bunch of people who were heartbroken. Being at universities, they put out flyers all over the campus saying, have you been rejected in love but can't let go? Give us a call. And then as puffy eyed college kids walk through their door, the researchers asked them a ton of questions to make sure that they were truly, truly heartbroken. The main thing is that they cant stop thinking about the other person, that its really being obsessed with thinking about the other person.

Theyre crying a lot. They cant sleep. 15 sleep deprived sad sacks fit the bill for Lucys experiment. Now, step two, the brain scan. To make sure that their guinea pigs would be all sad and heartbroken while they were getting an MRI, the researchers asked them to bring in a photo of their once beloved's face.

Wendy Zuckerman
So they were actually looking into their dumpers eyes while they were in the scanner. Believe me, when you're in that machine and you open your eyes and you look, it's like right there you are in, immersed in that person. Yeah. That must have been awful. Oh, they were crying to, you know, remembering the heartbreak.

Yes. They really came out crying. Oh, yeah, yeah. Tears in the scanner, tears down their face. Yes.

Wendy Zuckerman
To then see what was heartbreak and what was just regular brain, Lucy and her team needed to do one final thing. They had the same college kids look at a photo of someone else while they were in the MRI, someone they weren't emotionally attached to at all. Then the researchers compared the two brain scans, and Lucy remembers when the results from each one started coming in. I do. I do.

When I first put the first ten and then twelve and then 14 and I first looked at that, it was pretty amazing.

Wendy Zuckerman
The experiment worked. She could see heartbreak in the brain. And Lucy told us about her very curious findings. One of the things that was interesting is that a part of the brain that registers physical pain was active. So we weren't feeling the physical pain, you know, like a pinch or a cut or a broken bone, but that part of the brain that says it, this hurts, that's active.

It's so interesting. Like, I think about that as different things. To break my leg, to break up with someone, but it's not that different. It's not that different. It's not just the physical pain.

It's not just the emotional pain. Those two are interacting all the time.

Wendy Zuckerman
And this all fits with a growing body of research showing this connection between physical pain and emotional pain. And its all suggesting that when people say, im hurting, they are literally hurting. And this doesnt just happen in heartbreak. It can also happen at other times, like when we get rejected or left out of a game. Its what science calls social rejection.

Okay, so thats the hurting part of a breakup. But Lucy also saw that when those heartbroken saps looked at their exes, another part of their brain lit up. The reward system. This system gets triggered when we do stuff like eat chocolate, take drugs, you know, the fun ones, and when were in love. So its this two thing.

Its causing them pain. But there he or she is. That face that gave so much pleasure, so many good times, made me feel so good in my heart. So we can see in their brains that they crave their ex, but they can no longer have them. And that's where the heartbreak kicks in.

Wendy Zuckerman
And so all this stuff is going on in our brain, and it turns out that this can have real effects on our body. The brain is influencing the body, and all these systems are interacting. So research has found that after losing a partner, certain hormones, like cortisol, can start racing around our body. This is a stress hormone. And early research suggests that this cascade of stress can cause real problems.

Surveys have found that it can affect your sleep for sometimes months. It can also mess up your immune system. And one more thing. Heartache can quite literally hurt your heart in ways that you can really feel. You do.

You feel a deep, sunken, tight feeling in your chest. Now, in some cases, you can get pain in your heart that's actually quite serious. It's a type of heart failure, and it's known as takeotsobu syndrome. During takeotsobus, one chamber of your heart balloons up in this very specific way, which is actually where the syndrome gets its name from. Your heart starts to look like a japanese octopus trap, which is called a takutsobu.

Wendy Zuckerman
And you can get takeotsobus after other kinds of stress, too, like public speaking. And there was even this case report of it happening to someone after they ate too much wasabi. So where does all of this leave us? Well, we now know that heartbreak can cause real, measurable effects throughout your body. It can increase your stress hormones, cause sleep problems, and even chest pains.

So for all you heartbroken folks out. There, you're not crazy. This is your brain. This is a physiological thing. You're not to blame for this.

Don't blame yourself for all of this. Both Matt and Annabelle told us that knowing that heartbreak can cause real physical pain. It's really helpful, and it's something they both wish they knew at the time. I wouldn't have felt so stupid or silly for hurting. Would have been validating.

Annabelle
I do feel more normalized. If you're feeling physical pain that's normal, that's okay. You know, you're not just being a dramatic Disney princess.

Wendy Zuckerman
After the break, the best science on how to get over your ex yes, getting rid of the blood sucking vampire in your life is coming up.

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Wendy Zuckerman
Welcome back. Today on the show heartbreak. We know it truly, truly sucks to be heartbroken and that you can feel it throughout your body and your brain. And now we want to know how can you get over it and get to that heartbreak? Feels good in a place like this place.

First up, lets get some answers by looking into research in breaking bad habits. So one thing which has been shown to help people is to stay away from triggers or cues. So, for example, if you want to stop eating popcorn, don't go to the cinema. There was actually a study on this, and it helps if you want to quit smoking, don't have cigarettes around. And when it comes to heartbreak, applying the same logic, if you want to stop thinking about your ex, clear out their text messages, block them on Instagram.

Throw away all of the, all of the things that were associated with that person. You should just get rid of them. Go live somewhere else entirely. If youre really having a big problem, just get away from there. But if you cant uproot your entire life to get over someone, we did find another helpful suggestion in the literature, and its called negative reappraisal.

Wendy Zuckerman
Its a fancy science phrase for saying, just keep reminding yourself of what a turd your ex was. Annabelle did a lot of this, too. You know, like, it would be okay. This was a red flag, so I shouldn't be so sad. Oh, okay.

Annabelle
A little bit of the tightness went away. He never liked my friends, and that's important to me. Okay. A little bit of the tightness went away. And when it came to negative reappraisal, Annabelle's bates were very helpful.

You know, my friends being like, yeah, we fucking hated that guy. Like, good on you for breaking up with him. But it's not all just thinking they were such a schmuck. And trust me, they were a schmuck. On the flip side, research has found that it's a good idea to try to reframe the breakup.

Wendy Zuckerman
Like, don't think, oh, I wish I was different, and then they would have liked me instead. Try to see that the relationship was holding you back or that you grew from it or that you couldn't truly be yourself around them. You know, you realize I can buy myself flowers. I can hold my own hand. I can love me better than you can.

Annabelle says looking back, the breakup was absolutely the right step for her. Yeah, it was so hard, but it was so necessary. Like, the person I became after that was just the complete opposite of who I was going into it. I feel like if I didnt have sh tty relationships, then I wouldnt have been able to identify what a really good one is. 100%.

Annabelle
100%. And if youre not ready for personal growth just yet, take heart. Time heals all wounds, or at least it can help. A survey of almost 200 uni students found that people tended to be less distressed if there had been more time since their breakup. And this is true not just for humans, but theres AlsO research about this in voles.

Wendy Zuckerman
So voles are these LittlE potato shaped rotors that are very cute, and theyre known for partnering up for life. And if scientists take away their lovers, the voles get really stressed. But even they can get over a breakup. And you can see this in the chemicals in their body. So just this year, a study was published that found that while soon after a breakup, the voles would get this dopamine hit if they saw their ex after time had passed, when they saw their ex, that dopamine surge went away.

And for Matt, time was one thing that helped for sure. Eventually, I got to a place where when I did see him again, it didn't trigger me in any kind of way. In fact, it was like I was almost annoyed. Like, ugh. Some studies have found that writing or journaling about your emotions after a breakup might help you feel a little better.

Therapy is also a good one, and it has been found to help with those pesky ruminating thoughts.

And then just finally, there are some things that will help you get over a breakup that you cant read about in the scientific literature. So Matt loves to go out dancing, and its something his ex wouldnt let him do. Matts ex could be abusive, like getting really jealous. And for Matt, not going out dancing. That just killed me.

Matt
Im like, thats my joy. Thats everything. Thats where my source of joy really is. I love to dance. And he's like, no, you can't do that anymore.

Wendy Zuckerman
And when things ended and Matt was in that pit of despair, he found something to make him feel better, or rather, someone. The best way that I knew how to get through my feelings was dancing in my room. There was one set of CDs that I came back to and would go over and over again. And that is one woman, the woman who is every woman. And that was Whitney Houston.

Whitney Houston's greatest hits collection had just come out, and Matt played that album on repeat. First, he listened to the sad tracks that made him cry, like, didn't we almost have it all? And he'd always finish dancing his heart out to one final track. The song that meant the most to me was I want to dance with somebody who loves me, because that was really what I felt. I kept coming back to that moment over and over again where I had started dancing in the club with him, and he just looked at me with disgust.

Matt
When Whitney sings I want to dance with somebody who loves me, that was it. That was everything that expressed everything that I ever wanted to express. That's where I found myself again. And so even to this day, when I hear that song, like, it just, like, it brings me to this place of yes, that's what I want. Years later, Matt is doing great.

Wendy Zuckerman
He's totally over that relationship, and so is Annabelle. In fact, her current partner. He's literally the best person in the entire fucking world. I mean, he introduced me to science versus. I mean, clearly, he's amazing.

Okay? So when it comes to the science of heartbreak, here's what we've learned. It's real. You can see it in our brains, in our hearts, and even in our immune systems. And to hack your way out of heartbreak, try reminding yourself what a twerp they were.

Try avoiding triggers, like the fun things you used to do together. Don't drive past their house at night. Olivia Rodrigo, she knew what was going on. And also, don't discount the healing powers of Whitney. That's science versus.

Oh, wait. Wait a sec. Wait a sec. I still have to tell you about what became of that journal. You know, Annabelle's ex's red moleskin journal.

Well, the thing is, after her breakup, she called up her stepmom. I was like, I'm not giving it back to him, but I don't want to just throw it away, because I feel like that's not enough justice. And she just goes, burn it. I was like, I have to go. There's going to be a bonfire.

Annabelle
I was already living with one of my best friends, so I call another one of my girlfriends, and I was like, brittany, we're having a bonfire tonight. Yes. And she was like, hells, yeah. She comes over, we take one of our pots from our kitchen, just like, one of our sauce pots. We go outside on the balcony, page by page.

Wendy Zuckerman
Wendy, you did a page by page. Oh, wow. Oh, we did it page by page. How did it feel as you were burning it? It was phenomenal.

Annabelle
It was absolutely phenomenal. One of the things that he had problems with was me smoking weed with my friends, and he wrote about that multiple times in the journal. So my best friend took one of those entries, rolled up a joint with it, and we used the flames of the burning journal to light the joint that I smoked.

Wendy Zuckerman
That is so sweet. Yeah, that's science versus. This episode has 64 citations in it. 64. If you want to read more about the science of heartbreak, then just head to our show notes and click on the link to our transcript, and you will see a fully cited, beautiful script full of beautiful science.

A huge thanks to all of the listeners who shared your heartbreak stories with us. Oh, my gosh, we read every single one. We pored over them. We really, really appreciate that you sent those and felt comfortable. Thank you so much.

If you want to appear on a episode of Science versus telling us your story of various things, keep an eye out on our social media. You could go to our Instagram, which is science versus. We often have little call outs where we want to hear from you. Also, my TikTok is Wendysookerman. Now, in this episode, we did talk about some tough stuff, and if you are going through a nasty, maybe even abusive relationship and you just want to talk to someone, we're going to put some resources in our show notes.

This episode was produced by Michelle Dang with help from me, Wendy Zuckerman, Rose Rimler, Meryl Horne, Caitlin Sorry. And Lexi Crop. Editing by Caitlin Kenny and Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Diane Kelly and Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard and Bobby Lord.

Music written by Peter Leonard, Bumi Hidaka, Emma Munger and Bobby Lord. A huge thanks to all of the scientists that we reached out to for this episode, including Professor Larry Young, Professor Tiffany Field, Professor Ethan Cross, Professor Sandra Lagoslag, and professor Naomi Eisenberger. Thanks to Laurie Siegel. A special thanks to the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. I'm Wendy Zuckerman.

Back to you next.