Heartbreak is a painful emotional experience that can happen for many reasons. When we care deeply about someone and the relationship ends or becomes damaged, it’s natural to feel sadness, grief, and a sense of loss. Though heartbreak is difficult, it’s an experience most people go through at some point in their lives.
What causes heartbreak?
There are several common causes of heartbreak:
- Breaking up with a romantic partner
- Being rejected by someone you have feelings for
- Infidelity or betrayal from a partner
- The death of someone close to you
- Moving away and leaving friends or loved ones behind
- Letting go of a dream or goal
Romantic relationships ending are one of the most common triggers for heartbreak. When you share a deep bond with someone and have invested significant time and emotion into the relationship, it can feel devastating when it ends. Even if the relationship wasn’t working, you still grieve the loss of what could have been.
Similarly, unrequited love and rejection can cause deep heartbreak. When you have strong romantic feelings for someone who doesn’t return them, it’s painful. Though it’s no one’s fault, rejection makes you feel inadequate and as though you’ll never find the right person.
Infidelity is another common cause of heartbreak. Discovering your partner’s affair ends trust and causes you to question the whole relationship. You feel shocked, angry, and overcome with grief over the relationship you thought you had.
When someone significant to you dies, the grief can be overwhelming. Losing their presence from your life and no longer being able to share experiences with them leaves a deep void. Every day you wish they were still with you.
Sometimes heartbreak comes from distance and letting go. If you move away from your closest friends, it’s devastating to no longer see them regularly and share your lives together. Pursuing your dreams, like going away to college, can also mean losing the comfort and community of your hometown.
How does heartbreak feel?
Heartbreak involves intense emotional pain and grief. Common feelings include:
- Profound sadness and frequent crying
- Anger at the situation or person who caused the heartbreak
- Loneliness from the loss of the person’s presence
- Guilt about your role in what went wrong
- Worry that you’ll never find love again
- Lost sense of meaning or purpose without the person
- Feeling rejected and undesirable
Heartbreak can also cause physical symptoms from the overwhelming emotions and stress. You may experience:
- Insomnia and other sleep issues
- Changes in appetite and weight loss or gain
- Fatigue and lack of energy
- Tightness or pain in your chest
- Upset stomach and nausea
- Headaches
The depth of grief can make it difficult to focus on anything else. Your mind is consumed with thoughts about what went wrong and what you’ve lost. Simple tasks seem impossible when you’re overwhelmed with emotion. Taking care of yourself and accomplishing daily responsibilities requires significant effort.
Why does heartbreak hurt so much?
Heartbreak brings grief and mourning that can be as painful as the loss of a loved one. In fact, brain imaging studies show that the same areas of the brain become active whether a person is grieving over a lost relationship or the death of someone close.
There are several reasons heartbreak hurts so profoundly:
- Attachments: Forming an emotional bond and attaching to someone makes the separation agonizing.
- Rejection: The end of a relationship can feel like rejection and a blow to your self-worth.
- Loneliness: The absence of someone’s presence you are used to is intensely lonely.
- Change: Ending a relationship means an unwelcome change in your life.
- Disillusion: Heartbreak shatters your hopes for the relationship.
- Security: Losing a relationship removes a source of comfort and stability.
Our brains register the loss of a valued relationship much like danger warnings. Breakups and rejection trigger the release of stress hormones that put us in a state of high alert and distress. We go into crisis mode because our sense of security has been threatened or destroyed.
The longing and grief of heartbreak are a reflection of how deeply you were able to love and attach. The more you invested in the relationship, the more devastating the loss feels. However, the intensity of heartbreak also reveals your capacity for deep connection with another person.
How long does heartbreak last?
Mending a broken heart takes time, and there is no standard timeline for recovering from heartbreak. Factors that affect the duration of heartbreak include:
- How close the bond was between you and the other person
- The importance of the hopes and dreams you had to let go of
- How much the relationship provided security and met your emotional needs
- How suddenly the relationship ended or the heartbreak occurred
- How traumatic the circumstances of the separation were
- Pre-existing mental health conditions like anxiety or depression
- Availability of close support from friends and family
- Willingness and ability to seek professional help if needed
For most people, the acute emotional pain of heartbreak starts to fade after about 6 months. However, it often takes 1-2 years to fully process the grief and recover. Some people may take even longer depending on their unique situation.
At first, the heartbreak feelings may be constantly intense and overwhelming. But gradually, the periods of grief get shorter and further between. One day you realize you made it through a whole day without crying or dwelling on how much you miss your ex. Slowly you regain stability, hope and meaning again.
How to cope with heartbreak
These self-care strategies can help you start healing from heartbreak:
- Allow yourself to grieve – Cry, journal, talk to friends, listen to sad music if it provides comfort.
- Avoid numbing the pain with alcohol, drugs, risky behavior – this prolongs the grieving process.
- Reduce contact with your ex if possible – seeing them or talking often makes healing more difficult.
- Try journaling – writing out your feelings provides a healthy outlet.
- Engage in physical activity – exercise helps relieve stress and boost endorphins.
- Make time for social connection – spend time with good friends who lift your mood.
- Pursue new hobbies and goals – find activities unrelated to your ex that provide meaning and enjoyment.
- Consider counseling – therapists can help you process the grief and move forward.
The end of an important relationship is always painful. Be patient and kind to yourself as you mourn what was lost, and know that the heartbreak will pass in time. Each day focusing on self-care and small positives nudges you towards healing.
How can I mend my broken heart?
To mend your broken heart:
- Allow yourself to fully experience the grief – don’t bottle up emotions.
- Remove constant reminders of your ex from your environment if needed.
- Connect with community – spend time with people who care about you.
- Minimize contact with your ex to help overcome attachment.
- Pour your energy into positive outlets like work, hobbies, exercise.
- Make a list of your core values and life goals outside of the relationship.
- Consider counseling to work through unresolved feelings.
- Practice self-care and treat yourself with compassion.
- Develop new routines and find ways to enjoy each day.
- Forgive yourself for any perceived mistakes and focus on growth.
With time and concerted effort, you can put your broken pieces back together. Nurturing your emotional and physical well-being helps accelerate healing. Though scars remain, your heart will become whole again.
Why is self-care important after heartbreak?
Self-care is essential during heartbreak because grief and emotional stress take a toll on your health and well-being. Making self-care a priority helps counteract the depletion of energy and emotional resources heartbreak causes. Self-care activities provide comfort and restore a sense of stability when everything feels off-balance after a breakup.
Practicing regular self-care can help you:
- Cope with the emotional anguish of heartbreak
- Prevent spiraling into more severe anxiety or depression
- Gain perspective that you will heal and your life will go on
- Cultivate compassion and tenderness for yourself
- Replenish your mind and body to aid the healing process
- Find satisfying experiences unrelated to your ex
- Reduce the grip of obsessive thoughts about the relationship
Making your needs a priority demonstrates your worth beyond the broken relationship. Nurturing yourself also provides relief from the exhaustion that accompanies severe grief. Self-care is the active practice of being kind to yourself during a painful time.
Self-care strategies
Effective self-care strategies after heartbreak include:
- Getting adequate sleep
- Eating a nutritious diet
- Exercising and being active
- Pursuing hobbies or learning new skills
- Reflecting through journaling
- Going to therapy or joining a support group
- Making time for socializing and fun
- Engaging in relaxation activities like yoga, meditation, massage
- Taking quiet time to be alone with your thoughts
- Doing small acts of self-kindness every day
Prioritize whatever self-care approaches help you feel consistently stabilized and cared for. Listen to what your mind and body need each day. With active self-compassion, you can survive heartbreak and come through it with new understanding of yourself and what you seek in relationships.
When to seek help
It’s advisable to seek help from a mental health professional if you experience any of the following:
- Depression that lasts more than 2 weeks
- Loss of interest in normal activities
- Inability to function at work/school/home due to constant grief
- Trouble sleeping and loss of appetite going on for some time
- Constant thoughts of suicide or death
- Consuming drugs or alcohol to deal with the pain
- Engaging in other risky behaviors like promiscuity or self-harm
- Intrusive thoughts, flashbacks or nightmares relating to traumatic details of your breakup or the relationship
- Obsessive checking your ex’s social media for updates
- Intense guilt, shame, lack of self-worth
Seeking counseling does not mean you are weak or incapable of getting through heartbreak alone. Therapy simply provides additional support to process the grief in a healthy way. The right therapist helps you gain insight into yourself and your relationships.
You may also benefit from medication like antidepressants under a doctor’s supervision if you are experiencing severe depression or anxiety in reaction to your breakup. With professional help and your own self-care efforts, you can work through the heartbreak and recover.
Can you die from a broken heart?
Although not dying in a literal sense, intense grief and heartbreak can lead to health complications that become fatal in some cases. Some potential effects include:
- Takotsubo cardiomyopathy – condition causing temporary heart muscle failure from stress.
- Broken heart syndrome – temporary heart muscle weakness mimicking heart attack.
- Increased likelihood of heart disease down the road due to surges in stress hormones.
- Stroke – intense stress raises risk of blood clots leading to strokes.
- Suicide – profound depression and despair may lead to suicidal thoughts.
- Deterioration of physical health if self-care is neglected due to grieving.
The greatest risk tends to be in older adults already at higher chance for heart conditions. The death of a spouse they depended on heavily accounts for most cases of “dying from a broken heart.” However, significant grief impacts health for people of all ages.
The emotional toll of extreme grief, trauma, or prolonged, unresolved depression from heartbreak can trigger changes in heart rhythms and blood flow that cause death. Seeking help through therapy, support groups, and medication can mitigate health risks if you are not coping well with loss.
Conclusion
Heartbreak is a nearly universal human experience, though painful and difficult. Allowing yourself to fully mourn the loss is necessary for healing. Prioritizing self-care helps counteract some of grief’s draining effects so you can progress through heartbreak. With time and intentionality, you can mend a broken heart and open yourself to new relationships and purposes. If the grief becomes overwhelming, seek professional help. You deserve compassion and support in order to heal.