The 4 Reasons Why It Hurts So Much When Our Hearts Are Broken
Love may be one of the great sources of happiness that human beings can enjoy, but it is also true that, in certain circumstances, it can give rise to nightmare situations. Deep down, any aspect of our lives that leads us to feel attached is a possible vulnerability. And, when we love someone, that attachment becomes so strong that a good part of the loving relationship that can arise from that becomes one of our most important projects, so that if something happens to that bond, everything is ours. around it wobbles.
These kinds of emotional impacts are so strong that they are not relieved or in cases where our hearts are broken in a predictable way: the fact that we feel disappointment in love and begin to really see that the other person did not care about us as much as it seemed at first does not prevent us from continuing to long for that relationship. Why is this happening?
Under the concept of “breaking our hearts” there are actually several psychological processes occurring that run in parallel but that, appearing more or less at the same time, are perceived as a whole. All of them cause discomfort and are the emotional blows that remain from the void that the other person leaves in us.
So that, the reasons why it hurts when someone breaks our heart They are the following.
1. The end of shared habits
When someone with whom we shared our daily lives disappears from our side, not only does she leave: so do all those routines that we associate with that life together. Whether it’s walking in the park, going to the movies frequently or playing sports, the fact that a very important part of those experiences is no longer there makes them become habits that mean nothing
Therefore, after having gone through an intense love relationship, you have to deal with the uncertainty of how to rebuild your own 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 hand, having to decide how to start over is something that causes stress.
2. Intrusive thoughts appear
There is no greater myth than the belief that thoughts, because they are superior psychological processes (therefore, theoretically far removed from “instincts”), are something we control. In reality, anyone who has gone through a highly stressful or traumatic experience knows that this is not true.
Thoughts related to those memories that marked us emotionally in the past They tend to appear and disappear without warning, regardless of our willpower. It is something that is beyond the intentions with which we decide to face the day; They simply emerge within our consciousness and, once there, it is almost impossible to ignore them: they act like a magnet on our attention focus, precisely because they are thoughts that produce emotional pain.
We must keep in mind that, in the same way that evolution has made us capable of thinking through abstract concepts and loving based on a sophisticated understanding of the other person’s identity, it has also made us capable of suffering. a lot for events that do not involve physical injuries.
What happens when our hearts are broken is the paradigmatic example of this: curiously, it has been seen that what happens in the brains 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 consequence, wear is greater.
4. Something similar to withdrawal syndrome
When a person accustomed to consuming a drug stops using that substance, their nervous system goes into crisis, because due to dependency it 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 heart we have to adapt to a world in which something we took for granted is no longer there: the love and affection of someone specific Specifically, they help reduce the effects of the absence of those moments together that we previously enjoyed.
