Broken heart

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For other uses, see Broken Heart (disambiguation).
Heartache can cause severe emotional and also physical pain

A broken heart (also known as a heartbreak or heartache) is a term metaphor for the intense emotional—and sometimes physical—stress or pain one feels at experiencing great longing. The concept is cross-cultural; most often, though not exclusively, cited with reference to a desired or lost lover; and dates back at least 3,000 years.[1]

Emotional pain that is severe can cause 'broken heart syndrome', including physical damage to the heart.


The emotional "pain" of a broken heart is believed to be part of the survival instinct. The "social-attachment system" uses the "pain system" to encourage humans to maintain their close social relationships by causing pain when those relationships are lost.[1] Psychologists Geoff MacDonald of the University of Queensland and Mark Leary of Wake Forest University proposed in 2005 the evolution of common mechanisms for both physical and emotional pain responses and argue that such expressions are "more than just a metaphor".[2][3] The concept is believed to be universal, with many cultures using the same words to describe both physical pain and the feelings associated with relationship loss.[3][2]

The neurological process involved in the perception of heartache is not known, but is thought to involve the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain, which during stress may overstimulate the vagus nerve causing pain, nausea or muscle tightness in the chest.[4] Research by Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman of the University of California from 2008 showed that rejection is associated with activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and right-ventral pre-frontal cortex, areas established as being involved in processing of pain, including empathizing with pain experienced by others.[4] The same researchers mention effect of social stressors on the heart, and personality on perception of pain.[5]

A 2011 study showed that the same regions of the brain that become active in response to painful sensory experiences are activated during intense social rejection or social loss in general.[3][6] Social psychologist Ethan Kross from University of Michigan, who was heavily involved in the study, said, "These results give new meaning to the idea that social rejection hurts".[3] The research implicates the secondary somatosensory cortex and the dorsal posterior insula.[3]


Uncomplicated grief[edit]

For most bereaved individuals, the journey through grief will ultimately culminate in an acceptable level of adjustment to a life without their loved one.[7] The Kübler-Ross model postulates that there are five stages of grief after the loss of a loved-one: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.[1][8] And while it is recognized that mourners go through initial period of numbness leading to depression and finally to reorganization and recovery, most modern grief specialists recognize the variations and fluidity of grief experiences differ considerably in intensity and length among cultural groups and from person to person.[7]

Ruminating, or having intrusive thoughts that are continuous, uncontrollable, and distressing,[9] is often a component of grieving. John Bowlby's concept of searching for the lost object is about the anxiety and mounting frustration as the mourner remains lost, frequently sifting through memories of the departed, and perhaps fleeting perceptions of spectral visitations by the lost individual. When the loss involves 'being left' or 'unrequited love',[10] in addition to the above, this mental searching is accompanied by obsessive thoughts about factors leading to the breakup, and possibilities for reuniting with the lost individual.[11] When rejection is involved, shame may also be involved – the painful feeling of being inherently unacceptable, disposable, unworthy.[12]

The physical signs of grieving include:[13]

  1. Exhaustion, muscle tightness or weakness, body pains, fidgety restlessness, lack of energy
  2. Insomnia, sleeping too much, disturbing dreams
  3. Loss of appetite, overeating, nausea, "hollow stomach", indigestion, intestinal disorders like diarrhea, excessive weight gain or loss
  4. Headaches, short of breath, chest pressure, tightness or heaviness in the throat


A broken heart is a major stressor and has been found to precipitate episodes of major depression. In one study, 24% of mourners were depressed at two months, 23% at seven months, 16% at 13 months and 14% at 25 months.[14]

Although there are overlapping symptoms, uncomplicated grief can be distinguished from a full depressive episode.[15] Major depression tends to be more pervasive and is characterized by significant difficulty in experiencing self-validating and positive feelings. Major depression is composed of a recognizable and stable cluster of debilitating symptoms, accompanied by a protracted, enduring low mood. It tends to be persistent and associated with poor work and social functioning, pathological immunological function, and other neurobiological changes, unless treated.[7]

In relationship breakups, mourners may turn their anger about the rejection toward themselves.[16] This can deepen the depression[17] and cause narcissistic wounding.[18] The process of self-attack can range from mild self-doubt to scathing self recrimination which leaves a lasting imprint on individuals' self-worth, and causes them to doubt their lovability, personality-efficacy, and attachment worthiness going forward.[19]

Psychological trauma[edit]

In severe cases, the depression of a broken heart can create a sustained type of stress that constitutes an emotional trauma which can be severe enough to leave an emotional imprint on individuals' psychobiological functioning, affecting future choices and responses to rejection, loss, or disconnection.[20] A contributing factor to the trauma-producing event is that 'being left' can trigger primal separation fear – the fear of being left with no one to take care of one's vital needs.

Mourners may also experience the intense stress of helplessness.[21] If they make repeated attempts to compel their loved one to return and are unsuccessful, they will feel helpless and inadequate to the task. Feeling one's 'limited capacity' can produces a fault line in the psyche which renders the person prone to heightened emotional responses within primary relationships.[22]

Another factor contributing to the traumatic conditions is the stress of losing someone with whom the mourner has come to rely in ways they did not realize.[23] For instance, in time, couples can become external regulators for one another, attuned on many levels: pupils dilated in synchrony, echoing one another's speech patterns, movements, and even cardiac and EEG rhythms.[24] Couples can function like a mutual bio-feedback system, stimulating and modulating each other's bio rhythms, responding to one another's pheromones,[25] and be addictive due to the steady trickle of endogenous opiates induced by the relationship.[26]

Post traumatic stress disorder[edit]

Research has shown that in extreme cases, some who experience a broken heart go on to develop Posttraumatic stress disorder.[27]

There are various predisposing psycho-biological and environmental factors that go into determining whether one's earlier emotional trauma might lead to the development of a true clinical picture of post-traumatic stress disorder.[20] This would lower their threshold for becoming aroused and make them more likely to become anxious when they encounter stresses in life that are reminiscent of childhood separations and fears, hence more prone to becoming posttraumatic.

Another factor is that insecure attachments in childhood have shown to predispose the individuals to difficulties in forming secure attachments in adulthood and to having heightened responses to rejection and loss.[28]

There is also variation in individuals' neurochemical systems that govern the stress regulation. Depending on the severity of the stress response induced in an individual by an event (i.e. a romantic breakup), certain concentrations of stress hormones including CRF, ACTH, and cortisol work to intensify the imprinting of an emotional memory of the event, indelibly inscribing its fears and other sensations in the amygdala (to serve as a warning for future events),[29] while the same stress hormones can act to impede.[27]

Medical Complications[edit]

Broken heart syndrome[edit]

In many legends and fictional tales, characters die after suffering a devastating loss. But even in reality people die from what appears to be a broken heart. Broken heart syndrome is commonly described as a physical pain in the heart or chest area, which is due to the emotional stress caused by a traumatic breakup or the death of a loved one.[30]

Broken heart syndrome mimics symptoms of a heart attack, but it is clinically different from a heart attack because the patients have few risk factors for heart disease and were previously healthy prior to the heart muscles weakening.[30] Some echocardiograms expressed how the left ventricle, of people with the broken heart syndrome, was contracting normally but the middle and upper sides of the heart muscle had weaker contractions due to inverted T waves and longer Q-T intervals that are associated with stress.[31] Magnetic resonance images suggested that the recovery rates for those suffering from broken heart syndrome are faster than those who had heart attacks and complete recovery to the heart is achieved within two months.[30]

Endocrine and immune dysfunction[edit]

Physiological and biochemical changes that contribute to higher physical illnesses and heart diseases have been found in individuals that have high levels of anxiety and depression. Some bereaved individuals who have divorced have compromised immune systems because of inflammatory cytokines followed by a state of depression.[32]

Cultural references[edit]

Biblical references to the pain of a broken heart date back to 1015 BC.[33]

Insults have broken my heart and left me weak, I looked for sympathy but there was none; I found no one to comfort me (Psalm 69:20)

Rudaki, regarded as the first great genius of Persian poetry, used broken heart imagery in his writing.

Look at the cloud, how it cries like a grieving man
Thunder moans like a lover with a broken heart.

Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra features a character, Enobarbus, who dies of a broken heart after betraying a friend. Lady Montague dies of a broken heart after the banishment of her son in Romeo and Juliet.[34]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b c Johnson, R. Skip. "A Broken Heart can Really Hurt You". Retrieved 14 June 2014. 
  2. ^ a b MacDonald, Geoff; Leary, Mark R. "Why Does Social Exclusion Hurt? The Relationship Between Social and Physical Pain" (PDF). Psychological Bulletin. Retrieved 7 May 2012. 
  3. ^ a b c d e University of Michigan News Service 2011.
  4. ^ a b Scientific American Mind 2015.
  5. ^ Eisenberger & Lieberman 2004, pp. 294-300.
  6. ^ National Academy of Sciences 2011.
  7. ^ a b c Zisook, Sidney; Shear, Katherine (June 1, 2009). "Grief and bereavement: what psychiatrists need to know". World Psychiatry 8 (2): 67–74. PMID 2691160. 
  8. ^ Broom, Sarah M. (Aug 30, 2004). "Milestones". TIME. 
  9. ^ Carll 2007, p. 111.
  10. ^ Tennov, Dorothy. Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love, Scarborugh House (1998).
  11. ^ Bowlby, John, Loss: Sadness and Depression; Attachment and Loss, III, Basic Books, 1982.
  12. ^ Lewis, Helen Block. Shame and Guilt in Neurosis. Madison: International Universities Press, 1971.
  13. ^ Staff, Writer. "Bereavement And Grief". HomeLifeCountry. Retrieved 15 November 2012. 
  14. ^ Zisook, S; Shuchter, SR (October 1991). "Depression through the first year after the death of a spouse". American Journal of Psychiatry 148 (10): 1346–52. 
  15. ^ Auster, T; Moutier, C; Lanouette, N (October 1, 2008). "Bereavement and depression: implications for diagnosis and treatment". Psychiatric Annals 38: 655–661. 
  16. ^ Colin, Virginia A. (1996). Human Attachment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 340. 
  17. ^ Schore, Allan. Affect Regulation and Origin of Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994, pp. 416-422
  18. ^ Kohut, H. The Restoration of the Self Madison: International Universities Press, 1977.
  19. ^ Robertiello, Richard. Hold Them Very Close, Then Let Them Go. New York: Dial, 1975.
  20. ^ a b Van der Kolk, Bessel A., Alexander C. McFarlane, and Lars Weisaeth. Traumatic Stress:The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society. New Y ark: Guilford Press, 1996.
  21. ^ Seligman, Martin. Helplessness: On Depression, Development and Death. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1975.
  22. ^ Balint, Michael. The Basic Fault: Therapeutic Aspects of Regression. Evanston: North Western University Press, 1992.
  23. ^ Winnecott, Donald W. "The Capacity to be Alone." In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. Madison: International Universities Press, 1965 ; Robertiello, Richard, and Terril T. Gagnier, PhD. "Sado-masochism as a Defense Against Merging: Six Case Studies." Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy 23, no. 3 (1993) pp. 183-192.
  24. ^ Tiffany Field, "Attachment as Psychobiological Attunement: Being on the Same Wavelength," in The Psychobiology of Attachment and Separation, pp. 445-448.
  25. ^ L. Monti-Bloch, and B. I. Grosser, "Effect of Putative Pheromones on the Electrical Activity of the Human Vomeronasal Organ and Alfactory Epithilium," Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 1001.
  26. ^ Pert, Candace B. Molecules of Emotion. New York: Scribner, 1997' and Panksepp, Jaak, Eric Nelson, and Marni Bekkedal. "Brain Systems for the Mediation of Separation Distress and Social Reward." Annals NY Academy of Sciences 807 (1997) 78-100.
  27. ^ a b Goleman, Daniel. The Emotional Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights. North Hampton, Mass, 2011.
  28. ^ Ainsworth, Mary D. S. "Attachments and Other Affectional Bonds Across the Life Cycle." In Attachments Across the Life Cycle. New York: Routledge, 1991; Horney, Karen Horney, K. The neurotic personality of our time. New York: W. W. Norton and Company (1937).
  29. ^ LeDoux, Joseph. "Emotion, Memory and the Brain." Scientific American (June 1994).
  30. ^ a b c Mayo Clinic 2015.
  31. ^ Lumb 2014, p. 51.
  32. ^ Field 2011, pp. 382-387.
  33. ^ "Why is Bible engagement down in the digital age? Bible Gateway's Rachel Barach shares some insight". Biblegateway. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
  34. ^ "Romeo and Juliet, Act V Scene III". Shakespeare Literature. Retrieved 5 August 2015.




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