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The 4 reasons why it hurts so much when they break our hearts

The 4 reasons why it hurts so much when they break our hearts

April 4, 2024

Love may be one of the great sources of happiness that can be enjoyed by the human being, but it is also true that, in certain circumstances, can lead to nightmarish situations. In the end, any aspect of our lives that leads us to feel attachment is a possible vulnerability. And, when we love someone, that attachment becomes so strong that a good part of the love relationship that can arise from it becomes one of our most important projects, so that if something happens to that link, everything to our around staggers.

These kinds of emotional impacts are so strong that they are not relieved or in cases where we break our hearts in a predictable way: the fact that we feel disappointed in love and we actually see that the other person did not care as much as it seemed at first does not prevent us from continuing to long for that relationship. Why does this happen?


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What happens when we break our hearts

Under the concept of "breaking our hearts", in reality several psychological processes are happening that run in parallel but that, appearing more or less at the same time, are perceived as a whole. All of them produce discomfort and are the emotional thumps that remain from the emptiness that the other person leaves in us.

So that, the reasons why it hurts when someone breaks our hearts They are the following.

1. The end of shared habits

When someone with whom we shared day to day disappears on our side, not only does she leave; so do all those routines that we associate with that life in common. Whether walking in the park, going to the movies frequently or doing sports, the fact that a very important part of those experiences is no longer makes them become habits that mean nothing .


That is why, after having gone through an intense love relationship, one must deal with the uncertainty of how to rebuild one's life without the participation of the other person, which is painful for two reasons: on the one hand, it is a constant reminder that our hearts have been broken, and on the other, the fact of having to decide how to start over is something that causes stress.

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2. Intrusive thoughts appear

There is no greater myth than the belief that thoughts, because they are superior psychological processes (therefore, theoretically away from "the instincts") are something we control. In fact, anyone who has gone through a highly stressful or traumatic experience knows that this is not true.

The thoughts related to those memories that marked us emotionally in the past They usually appear and disappear without warning, regardless of our will power. It is something that is beyond the intentions with which we decide to face the day; simply, they emerge within our consciousness and, once there, it is almost impossible to ignore them: they act as a magnet on our attentional focus, precisely because they are thoughts that produce emotional pain.


3. Emotional discomfort usually lasts

We must bear in mind that, in the same way that evolution has made us capable of thinking through abstract concepts and of loving based on a sophisticated understanding of the other person's identity, it has also made us capable of suffering Much for facts that do not involve physical injuries.

What happens when we break our hearts is the paradigmatic example of this: curiously, we have seen that what happens in the brain of people who are going through this process is very similar to what happens when the neurobiological mechanisms of the perception of physical pain. However, unlike what usually happens when we receive damage from cuts or blows, emotional problems can last much longer . As a result, wear is greater.

4. Something similar to withdrawal syndrome

When a person accustomed to the use of a drug stops using that substance, his nervous system goes into crisis, because because of the dependency had adjusted to abnormal levels of chemicals between neurons, creating a kind of false biochemical balance in the body .

In a similar way, when someone breaks our hearts we have to adapt to a world in which there is no longer something we took for granted: the love and affection of someone in particular . Specifically, they go out to reduce the effects of the absence of those moments together of those that we used to enjoy.


The Science of Heartbreak (April 2024).


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