You cried. You stayed in bed for days, without being able to summon the strength to get up and continue your life. You listened to sad songs. You felt like everything around you was falling apart, and you yourself fell into the deepest abyss and did not know how to get out of there.
A beautiful and sensitive mind can become our worst enemy. But did you know that changes in the body also occur when someone breaks our heart?
Here are the most important things that happen to your body when you lose the love of someone dear to you:
1. Hormonal changes
Love makes you happy, and happiness causes the rise of hormones such as dopamine and oxytocin. When your heart is broken, these happiness hormones “disappear” and are replaced by cortisol and epinephrine, known as stress hormones. All that joy no longer exists, and stress and anxiety start taking over.
When the production of stress hormones in the body persists for a long time, the ability to create new memories is greatly reduced. This may be the reason why the brain cannot remember what caused the stress.
2. Weakening of the immune system
These difficult stress hormones also lower the body’s immune system, which means you are more likely to become sick with colds, flu, and infections.
3. Weight gain and changes in diet
When you go through a difficult time in your life, along with hormonal changes and the weakening of the immune system, certain cravings appear, by which the body tries to counteract the changed chemistry. These cravings are related to unhealthy foods (carbohydrates, fats, salty and overly sweet foods).
4. Skin problems
When stress hormones are released in high quantities, existing skin conditions, such as psoriasis, rosacea or acne can become more severe.
All these physical signs of a broken heart are acting as signals to make us realize that something wrong is happening in our body. On the other hand, when these signs become less visible or even start disappearing, our body tries to tell us that healing has begun.
5. Confusion
If your heart is broken, you may notice that you start doing strange things: you put your phone in the fridge, you put on your clothes the wrong way, or you forget about planned meetings with friends. Why does this confusion appear? When you suffer, your mind is so focused on the sadness and on the events that cause the sadness that your brain is not able to focus on everyday chores and simple actions.