Heartbreak pain is like physical pain to the brain

Falling in love again
Never wanted to
What am I to do
I can't help it
*

Robyn Williams: Love: what is it physiologically? Dr Lila Landowski from Hobart has been investigating it on your behalf. And this is what she has found so far:

Lila Landowski: We've all been there. You're in a relationship, sharing your hopes and dreams, and then you aren't. And heartbreak hurts. That ache you feel is more than just an imagined feeling. And guess what, as far as our brain is concerned, emotional distress is also a physical trauma. You know how it feels when you've got a migraine or you've put your back out and it's painful. Well, so is heartbreak, and it turns out that the brain registers heartbreak in the same way that it registers pain from a physical injury. And we know this because when people recall the rejection of an ex partner while sitting in a functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scanner, the same regions of the brain that become active in response to painful sensations are also activated during those intensely emotional recollections.

So you might think if breakup pain is like a kind of physical pain, can we just trick our brain to hurt less by taking some painkillers? And actually the science seems to suggest that maybe we can to some degree. A study from the University of Kentucky has shown that after a few weeks of taking paracetamol daily, we perceive significantly less hurt feelings in response to social rejection. But it didn't improve happiness levels. You do need to consider this with caution. We know that too much paracetamol causes liver failure, and in fact it's responsible for about 10,000 hospital admissions in Australia every year.

Now, there's more to heartbreak than just pain. There might be depression, there might be loss of motivation, changes in appetite, or erratic or obsessive behaviour. Where does that come from? Well, let's think about love. You know those first few months of a relationship, that honeymoon period, you're attracted to someone and you just want to be with them because it feels so good. What's happening there is the part of your brain that makes you feel a sense of reward gets flooded with dopamine. This is the same part of the brain that makes food taste great when we're hungry, or when you feel elated when your favourite sports team wins a game. And it also drives addiction. So being with that person feels rewarding. These same regions of the brain that light up when we are feeling attraction, light up when we take the drug cocaine or binge-eat sweets.

But it doesn't just happen when we're in love. Functional MRI brain scans of people who are recalling rejection from an ex-partner show increased brain activity in areas associated with reward and motivation and addiction and even obsessive compulsive disorder behaviour. So in other words, love is addictive, and breaking up with someone is like going through withdrawals. There may be erratic behaviour and cravings to be reunited with a past partner. And these powerful withdrawal symptoms can impact our ability to think and focus and function. And when a drug addict is going through withdrawals, we acknowledge that they are experiencing an abnormal mental state, and in many ways we might need to think of heartbreak in the same way.

When you're in love there are changes in a range of neurotransmitters and hormones in the brain, and the brain adapts to expect these neurotransmitters in a similar supply. So following a breakup, the brain suddenly has to adapt to the change in neurochemistry and the hormones that it had become so used to. And with these changes there's a sudden rise in the level of stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol has a lot of functions in the body, but some of the things it does do includes signalling to tell our brain to wake up in the morning. It also makes you react quickly to situations, driving that fight or flight response. And it also alters your metabolism. This is why heartbreak might lead to problems with sleeping, anxiety, changes in weight, heart palpitations, and even aggressive behaviour. There's even a rare medical syndrome that affects the heart called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, which can develop in response to the huge surge in stress that happens after a breakup.

So how can we try and reverse those changes in the brain after a breakup that leaves you feeling sad or depressed? Well we know that social connection with other people and reflecting on a recent breakup, without ruminating on it too much, can help speed that healing process. You might have heard of oxytocin referred to as the love hormone because it's one of the things that is responsible for us falling in love, for that bonding with our babies and even that feel-good high we get after having an orgasm.

Now, oxytocin is responsible for that feeling of being close and connected to someone, and it doesn't just make us bond with people, it also makes us feel better by reducing the levels of those stress hormones, like cortisol, in our bloodstream. And when you are stressed, your brain also releases small amounts of oxytocin in the brain, and you might wonder why the brain is releasing a bonding hormone when we are stressed, and it serves a really important evolutionary purpose; it's trying to help us survive. It makes us crave that connection with someone so that when we are stressed we reach out to a friend, and that releases even more oxytocin. It's a positive feedback loop, and we talk through our problems with them and the level of cortisol in our bloodstream drops. And you ultimately feel better.

Social connectedness is even one of the best predictors of happiness and health in older age. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which is one of the world's longest running studies, found that one of the best predictors of good health in older age occurs in people who describe being happy in their relationships in middle life.

The good news is research suggests that we tend to overestimate how long it takes to get over a bad breakup. So don't put off a breakup as a way of delaying the pain. If a relationship isn't working, have the courage to break it off. You know when one door closes, another one opens. It opens you up to the opportunity to meet someone who is a better fit for you, and ultimately the science suggests that people tend to experience more regret over missing a romantic opportunity than they do over a failed relationship. So ultimately the science really does tell us that there is truth to the old adage; it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Robyn Williams: Dr Lila Landowski, one of our Top Five Scientists this year, sending that love letter from the University of Tasmania and Hobart where she is a brain scientist.


* ('Falling In Love Again' - sung by Marlene Dietrich )

 

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