broken heart symptoms

we’ve all heard love is like a drug. sodoes that mean heartbreak is like withdrawal? hello lovers, lissette here for dnews. ifyou’ve ever fallen in love, this also means you’ve probably experienced heartache. breakupsare so painful that they can lead to feelings of loneliness, anger, and even clinical depression.and they affect more than just your feelings. we’ve already done an episode on how heartbreakliterally hurts your heart. and you probably also know that emotional pain, especiallywith rejection, can activate the same neurological regions as physical pain. yep. to your brain,getting accidentally hit by a rogue baseball on your shoulder is the same as hearing, “it’snot you. it’s me.” so what is really happening in your brain when you’re experiencing heartbreak?

to really get a full grasp of this, we haveto first look at what’s happening in the brain when we are in love. it’s not justone thing going on. turns out, there are many processes involved that together comprisea system of motivation, reward, and addiction. but, the two major chemicals involved arethe neurotransmitters dopamine and oxytocin. in one study published in the journal of neurophysiology,researchers looked at the brains of 17 people experiencing intense romantic love at itsearly stages. they showed them either photographs of their beloved or a neutral acquaintance.and using fmri technology, the researchers found that when looking at their loved one,there was greater activation in areas that are dopamine rich - like the right ventraltegmental area and the medial caudate nucleus.

interestingly, other studies have shown thatthe ventral tegmental area also activates when humans are under the effects of cocaine.so, it’s not really just a metaphor when songwriters call love a drug and their loversan addiction. our brains literally get hooked on love. so when we go through a breakup, it can looka lot like withdrawal. even though we know it’s bad for us to go stalk our exes’photos on social media we end up doing it anyway, because our brains are seeking thereward of all the feel-good chemicals associated with our ex. what’s more, studies have shownthat when deeply in love we include our partners in our concept of ourselves; one study publishedin the journal social cognitive and affective

neuroscience found that in long-term lovingpartnerships, several of the same brain areas associated with maternal love and bondingare activated - so when we lose our partners it’s like we are losing a part of our identity- we’re being torn apart. all of this helps explain the deep sense of loss and emptinessafter a breakup. in fact, a study published in the americanjournal of psychiatry found that the brains of people going through heartache looked alot like the brains of those who were grieving. in another study, researchers at rutgers,einstein medicine and stony brook, teamed up and found that when they looked at photosof their exes, the brains of the brokenhearted had high activation in the ventral tegmentalarea, ventral striatum, prefrontal cortex,

and cingulate gyrus, which are areas relatedto “gains and losses, craving and emotion regulation”. what’s interesting is thatthere was some overlap in the brains of those who were happily in love and those who weredumped - particularly in the ventral tegmental area. basically, regardless of whether yourcrush is making you miserable or blissful, your brain still craves and seeks them - muchlike a drug. so when you can’t have them, like because they broke up with you, it feelsawful. but the good news is that just like a drug,you can drop it and recover from it. which is good to know since, many scientists arguethat we are evolutionarily adapted to fall in and out of love multiple times throughoutour lives.

if you’ve fallen in and out of love, whynot share with a website. no domain extension will help you tell your story like a dot comor dot net domain name. and because you watch dnews, you can get 15% off domain dot com’snames and web hosting by using the code dnews when you check out. but, to learn more about the physical effectsof heartache, check out this video on how you can literally die from a broken heart. if you’ve ever dealt with a break up, whatdid you find helped? some studies show social support can be great. share your thoughtsin the comments and remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode of dnews. thanksfor watching.