How DO You Mend a Broken Heart? Read On

The pandemic touched all of our lives. For some of us, it meant a loss of a former way of life. We missed our friends and our families. We missed going to work or school. We missed graduations, parties, and milestones celebrated. And we lost people we loved. It’s safe to say that most of us have felt some heartbreak in the past two years. Florence Williams knows a thing or two about that.

She has literally written the book on it. Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey (W.W. Norton & Company), is her scientific exploration of the subject we all have felt in one way or another. She writes, “Breakups are common, and heartbreak is nearly universal. And yet, it wallops us.” Its effects can be devastating. But as she points out, “If this was such a common and devastating experience, why wasn’t there a validated protocol for recovery beyond weep-dancing while belting out Gloria Gaynor? Where was the research and what did it say? You’d think after a million years of hominins sighing at the moon over lost love, we would have figured this out by now.”

Healing from Heartbreak

Williams put her skills as a science writer to work and experimented on herself in order to see if she could understand the way heartbreak changes our neurons, our bodies, and our sense of ourselves. Heartbreak traces, through her own story, the general trajectory of the ailment from the moment of shock to grief and loneliness toward a measure of repair. She tells us, “What I found was extraordinary, surprising, and immensely helpful. It would change the way I think about the world, our health, our relationships, and what it means to be human.”

Williams takes us on her intensely personal journey to find healing for her heartbreak after her divorce. Here is some of what she learned.

• After heartbreak—whether over a devastated landscape or a personal loss or a global crisis like a pandemic—it is often nature to which we turn. The more uprooted we feel, the more we need the literal rootedness of things with roots. In a crisis, nature reminds us that we are not the center of everything, and also that we are all connected.
• People who are able to experience (or cultivate) feelings of awe when looking at beauty, such as in art or nature, can see themselves as part of a larger, more meaningful reality. This is a useful perspective if you are lonely, and it is a perspective that can be practiced.
• Swear words can help us endure pain. Swearing, especially for women, amps up our aggression which floods our brain centers with pain-numbing adrenaline. A recent study at Keele University in the UK showed that students who were allowed to swear while dunking their hands in freezing water tolerated the discomfort 30 percent longer than the students not allowed to let loose with curse words.
• Emotional trauma, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.”
• Pets can play a significant role in relieving loneliness and emotional trauma.
• Among those whose hearts break, most will recover before the psychological wounds turn into post-traumatic stress.
• Many trauma therapists believe that physical movement can help reignite dimmed circuitry (thanks to the trauma) between bodily sensations and the brain. This, in turn, can help trauma sufferers stay rooted in the present, not constantly reliving the painful past.
• The phrase walking it off explains a real phenomenon, according to neuroscientist Shane O’Mara at the University of Dublin. He explains that moving around can help prevent depression, as well as a host of arterial and metabolic woes. As blood pumps and new neuronal growth factors flow, we become more creative, more self-aware, more ourselves.
• When we’re warm, our bodies release more natural opioids, which may be one of the reasons frequent sauna use in Finland (and aerobic exercise) is associated with lower rates of depression, stress, and stress-related diseases like heart attacks.
• The Greek philosophy of eudaimonic happiness posits that fulfillment derives not from feeling good but from striving for purpose. Research shows that people who seek fulfillment display better immune profiles than those who pursue hedonistic pleasure.
• A feeling of collective destiny is increasingly recognized by psychologists as critical for well-being. It got many of us through the darkest days of the pandemic.
• Brain scans show that social pain and cognitive effort have an inverse relationship. If you are in deep thought about something, you feel less pain in the emotional centers of your brain.

The last stop on Williams’ journey is the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia. Here she learns that in order to let go of heartbreak, it’s helpful to let go of physical reminders of that pain. Founder Drazen Grubisic says, “It’s such a serious thing and there’s nothing to help with resolution.” To that end, the museum allows people from all over the world to donate their artifacts of heartache and tell their stories. Williams writes, “The artifacts, like the memories they convey, become both enshrined and released at the same time.”