Love is like a drug. You can get really high with it. But since love is a drug. When you take it away, you feel severe withdrawal symptoms. From feeling like you’re on Cloud 9 to the feeling of being deep in the dumpsters. You feel like there is a hole in your heart and you start stuffing your face with chocolates, ice cream and start drinking like a fish just to fill the void. But what really goes on in your body when you get heart broken?
When your heart get broken you feel that every bit of you hurts. You want to stay in bed and cry all day long. You feel like you’ve been punched in the face by the Incredible Hulk. Well being heart broken really does cause pain, not only to your soul but also to your body.
Love Is A Drug – So You Go Into Withdrawal Without It
Imagine pulling the rug beneath a drug addict suddenly. You get the drift right? That is exactly how HB people feel.
When you first fall in love, you experience an exhilarating surge of happy hormones. You get super high on endorphins and oxytocin. The highly pleasurable hormone dopamine which gives you excitement and allows you to feel pleasure surges into your system. All of this crash when you get a heart break.
Imagine pulling the rug beneath a drug addict suddenly. You get the drift right? That is exactly how HB people feel. You feel lost, confused and in total pain. Your body is gripped with pain from losing all the happy hormones that you feel shivering agitation all over your body. Cortisol replaces all the good and addicting hormones. Cortisol negatively affects your body and puts it on stress mode.
Another hormone that replaces the jolly ones is epinephrine. This hormone comes from your adrenal glands and causes your heart rate to shoot up and your muscles to be tense. Not good at all because instead of feeling light you feel down and tense and anxious.
Your Body Feels Actual Pain
A person who has a broken heart would often tell you that he or she feel like there is a big hole in the middle of his or her chest that radiates pain all through out the body. It feels like pins and needles poking you painfully from your heart and the feeling spreads to your entire body. When you get heart broken, your brain actually registers the same pain receptors which feel injury or bodily harm.
Many people say that you are just imagining the pain, but the truth is you really do feel pain. You get headaches. Your heart beats become erratic or even slow which causes the blood not to flow well in your body making you feel actual chest pain.
You Gain or Lose Weight
The image of a girl sitting in her bed, clutching a pint of ice cream and sobbing like a mess is all to familiar. On the other hand, for some people literally cannot taste food when they are brokenhearted. Everything becomes stale and eating becomes a chore. For us humans eating is associated with feeling of happiness so some do it to feel OK and happy again. And so you start getting heavy after downing four slices of cake while watching Netflix all day.
Some people get too hurt that they turn into human zombies and forget to eat real food. They feel that there is no more joy in eating. Eating becomes a chore.
You Can’t Sleep or Can’t Even Function
A broken heart hurts. It hurts so bad that you feel a jabbing, stabbing, poking feeling in your heart, in your head and in your gut. You toss and turn in bed but can’t seem to get any shut eye. Your body is too tense to relax and sleep. All the stress hormones of cortisol and epinephrine make you anxious and worrisome.
When you try to work and function, your mind get’s too clouded. You lose focus because you are going into a state of denial, grief and even depression. Studies have proven that a broken heart has the same symptoms of depression.
Your Health Suffers
Have you ever heard of the phrase “Happy and Healthy”? Well you get the opposite of that when your brokenhearted. Your immune system becomes weak due to the brain telling your body that your feeling physical pain. Your blood sugar becomes erratic due to hormonal changes and mood swings. Your heart can suffer too due to immense doses of cortisol and epinephrine in your system.
When you get your heart smashed, your blood pressure either becomes really high or low. And since your heart does not not pump in a proper rhythm, you are likely to feel the same effects of a heart attack or can even suffer from an actual heart failure. Sucks right? But YOU NEED TO LIVE.
How to Fix a Broken Heart
Healing a broken heart may be difficult but you have got to do this. We now know all the painful, awful and unhealthy things that a broken heart does to your mind and body and we have to prevent it from breaking your apart completely. You are already hurt emotionally and your body suffers for it. You need to get up and do it for you and your health. You need to stick band-aid to your heart and start healing.
1. Be with friends.
2. Smile – it can trick your brain into feeling happy.
3. Exercise – Get back those happy hormones.
4. Get a pet, they can show you much love.
5. Eat chocolates (in moderation).
6. Travel.
7. Help others! Helping others REALLY MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD!
So being brokenhearted sucks big time. I know that. But guess what, you deserve love, from none other than yourself. You need to love YOU. Show yourself the love you deserve. START LIVING. Life is still beautiful.