The 4 reasons why it hurts when our hearts are broken

Love may be one of the great sources of happiness that the human being can enjoy. human, but it is also true that, under certain circumstances, it can give rise to situations of nightmare. Ultimately, any aspect of our lives that leads us to become attached is a potential vulnerability. And, when we love someone, that attachment becomes so strong that a good part of the loving relationship that can arise from it it becomes one of our most important projects, so that if something happens to that link, everything around us falls apart. wobbles.

This kind of emotional impacts are so strong that they are not alleviated or in cases where our hearts are broken in a predictable way: the fact that we feel disappointment in love and come to really see that at the another person did not care as much about us as she seemed at first does not prevent us from continuing to yearn for that relationship. Why is this happening?

• Related article: "The stages of heartbreak and its psychological consequences

What happens when our hearts break

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

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

1. The end of shared habits

When someone with whom we shared our daily life 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, frequently going to the movies or playing sports, the fact that a very important part of those experiences is no longer makes them become habits that mean nothing.

For this reason, 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 It's painful for two reasons: on the one hand, it's a constant reminder that our hearts have been broken, and on the other, having to decide how to start over is something that causes stress.

• You may be interested in: "The 5 phases to overcome the mourning of the breakup of a couple

2. Intrusive thoughts appear

There is no greater myth than the belief that thoughts, due to the fact that they are superior psychological processes (therefore, theoretically far from "instincts") are something that we control. Actually, anyone who has been 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 often 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 into our awareness and, once there, it is almost impossible to ignore them: they act like a magnet on our attentional focus, precisely because they are thoughts that produce pain emotional.

3. Emotional discomfort usually lasts

It must be taken into account that, in the same way that evolution has made us capable of thinking through abstract concepts and of loving from of a sophisticated understanding of the identity of the other person, has also made us capable of suffering a lot for events that do not involve injuries physical.

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 pain perception are activated physical. However, unlike what usually happens when we take damage from cuts or blows, emotional problems can last much longer. As a consequence, the wear is greater.

4. Something similar to withdrawal syndrome

When a person habituated to the consumption of a drug stops using that substance, their nervous system goes into crisis, because due to the dependence had adjusted to abnormal levels of chemicals between neurons, creating a kind of false biochemical balance in the brain. organism.

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