5 ways losing love affects you and what an expert says you can do to start feeling better

Heartbreak isn’t just an emotional experience. It can physically hurt, too. (Dimensions/E+/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about love. But for some, it’s also a reminder of love lost.

Heartbreak is something most folks will experience at some point in their lives. In fact, more than 80 per cent of people will have their hearts broken from a romantic split, research suggests. But heartbreak can also stem from friendships that drift apart or the death of a loved one.

For many, that pain isn’t just emotional; it can show up in physical ways. It’s often described as getting the wind knocked out of you, a knot in the stomach or even trouble sleeping.

“Ask someone you know what’s the most painful thing that ever happened in their lives,” psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Yoram Yovell told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently on his podcast, Chasing Life. “They would not tell you about a vehicle accident or some surgery, but they’ll tell you about someone they loved and they lost.”

Yovell is an associate professor of clinical neuroscience at Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His interest in understanding and treating emotional pain is personal.

When his father died of cancer, Yovell was just 14 years old.

“I can still remember how much it hurt,” he said. “It felt like this crushing, like something heavy on your chest. It stayed with me for a very long time. Even now, when I think of him, I feel a little pang.”

Heartbreak, however, doesn’t have to last forever. But the instinct many people have to withdraw, isolate and shut down, Yovell said, is often the opposite of what supports healing.

“One of the things that helps most is reconnecting to other people that you love,” he said.

The reverse is also true: If someone you care about is struggling, don’t give up on them.

“You hold the power to comfort loved ones in deep physical or emotional distress,” he said. The presence of a caring friend or relative triggers the release of feel-good endorphins, neurotransmitters in the brain that act as natural painkillers and mood boosters.

To that end, he recommended reaching out to your heartbroken friend, inviting them out and showing them other options. “Don’t lose heart if they push you back,” he added. “It’s our job to be there for them.”

And when the time feels right, Yovell said he often encourages patients to open themselves back up to love again. “The heart is strong,” he said. “It hurts, it’s true. But the heart can heal, and there are still people who love you.”

You can listen to the full episode here.

So, what happens in your body when you experience heartbreak? Here are five ways Yovell says science has uncovered.

Love hurts because it’s supposed to

It’s the age-old question: Does love always hurt?

“Yes, of course!” Yovell said. “Love is usually beautiful, right? But at some point, love is going to hurt. And if it doesn’t, then it might not be love.”

He describes mental pain as a kind of “superglue,” the mechanism that creates the distress you feel when someone you love pulls away. That pain evolved for a reason: It pushes you to hold on to important bonds with your partners, children, families and communities.

“Mental pain is simply the high price we pay for our ability to love,” he said. “And personally, I think it’s worth it.”

Your brain treats heartbreak like a physical injury

That crushing feeling in your chest isn’t imaginary.

“One of the most important findings from research on the neurobiology of love is that the brain’s mechanisms for physical pain and emotional pain overlap significantly,” Yovell explained.

The same brain regions involved in physical pain light up during emotional distress, such as social exclusion and loneliness, according to an fMRI study. When someone we love leaves or doesn’t return our feelings, the brain reacts in ways strikingly similar to a physical injury, he said.

In rare cases, heartbreak can even trigger takotsubo cardiomyopathy, often called “broken heart syndrome,” which is a temporary heart condition that mimics a heart attack.

A built-in alarm for separation is in your brain

Your brain is wired to sound the alarm in response to a rift or break-up.

The brain’s “loss” system drives feelings like sadness, anxiety and even depression when we lose someone we love, Yovell said. “It governs the courageous bond between an infant and its mother and is intensely activated upon separation from a loved one.”

From an evolutionary perspective, that system helps keep people connected, Yovell said, noting that the distress you may feel when bonds are threatened pushes you to repair them.

Early-life attachments can even shape how you experience love and connection as an adult, influencing the way you respond to loss and heartbreak later in life, he added.

“What we know as an anxious-dependent attachment style in infancy predisposes you to have these kinds of maladaptive attachments in adulthood,” he told Gupta.

Endorphins are your brain’s natural heartbreak medicine

Your brain has a way to soothe emotional pain: endorphins.

These natural chemicals serve as the brain’s defense against both physical and emotional distress by targeting certain opioid receptors involved in pain, euphoria and sedation, Yovell said via email.

He described them to Gupta as “nature’s own opioids, which are tremendously better than narcotics.”

That’s why reconnecting with friends and family isn’t just a distraction, but because these interactions produce endorphins that can help you heal.

Physical exercise works in a similar way. Movement can stimulate the release of endorphins, giving the brain a natural boost and helping it cope with the emotional pain of heartbreak.

Meds used for physical pain are being studied for heartbreak

Since emotional pain overlaps with physical pain in the brain, Yovell said some treatment options overlap, too. For milder heartbreak, over-the-counter pain relievers, such as acetaminophen, can slightly dull emotional pain, research suggests.

For more severe or persistent emotional pain, medications targeting the brain’s opioid pathways may help. “You can treat mental pain with narcotics,” Yovell told Gupta — but he stresses they’re not a safe long-term solution.

In a 2016 study Yovell led, he administered extremely low doses of the synthetic opioid buprenorphine to people experiencing severe emotional pain. Those who received the medication reported less mental pain and fewer suicidal thoughts compared with participants who received a placebo, the study found. “That works when the pain is severe,” he said.

Yovell, however, also emphasized that mental anguish serves a purpose.

“I think that acute mental pain is a great thing,” he said. “It lets you know who you care about. It can stop you from doing impulsive things.”

But when that pain becomes chronic, when it depresses people or makes them suicidal, he says psychiatry has to treat it the way medicine treats chronic physical pain: carefully, and with close monitoring.

By Kyra Dahring, CNN