Question

What happens to your body when you're heartbroken?

Answer 1

What happens to your body when you're heartbroken is your body will experience significant physical distress, which is triggered by a stress response, which in turn floods your body with cortisol and adrenaline.

The resulting cortisol and adrenaline flooding your body from being heartbroken, which triggers the stress response, results in real physical pain, including possible chest tightness, headaches, digestive issues and even weakened immune function.

Being heartbroken can also cause you to experience exhaustion, severe disruption in your sleep and in rare cases you can even get broken heart syndrome, which is where your heart muscle is weakened temporarily.

The physical effects and signs of being heartbroken include.

Physical pain, in which your brain processes emotional pain in the same regions as it does physical injury, which is the anterior cingulate cortex and insula, which causes genuine sensations of pain in your chest or body.

Heart and stress response, which results in increased stress hormones that can lead to rapid heart rate, high blood pressure and a feeling of being drained.

And in severe enough cases, acute stress can also cause broken heart syndrome also known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, which mimics a heart attack with symptoms like shortness of breath and sudden chest pain.

Immune system suppression with a broken heart can result in inflammation and weakness in your immune system due to the prolonged stress increasing the inflammation in the body and weakening your immune system, which can also make you more susceptible to infections and illnesses.

Digestive and muscle issues that can occur with a broken heart can result from stress triggering tension and causing headaches, muscle cramps and changes in appetite, like severe loss of appetite or overeating.

Intense emotions with a broken heart can also lead to sleep disruptions like insomnia, poor sleep quality or excessive fatigue.

And similar to that of withdrawing from a substance, when you're heartbroken, your brain experiences a drop in dopamine and oxytocin, which leads to feelings of desperation and even a loss of energy.