How to Get Over a Breakup: 5 Neuroscience-Backed Steps

Why does heartbreak feel like withdrawal? Discover what a breakup does to your brain, plus 5 neuroscience-backed steps to heal and find yourself again.

Key takeaways 

1. Heartbreak feels like withdrawal because romantic love works like an addiction in the brain. Falling in love fires the dopamine-rich ventral tegmental area (VTA), so the brain treats love like a survival need, closer to hunger or thirst. A breakup cuts off dopamine, oxytocin and vasopressin, and cortisol and adrenaline flood in.
2. A breakup feels like losing part of yourself because the brain merges your partner into your identity. The medial prefrontal cortex handles thoughts about yourself and about people you’re close to. Over time, your brain starts treating a loved partner as part of you.
3. Emotional pain and physical pain share brain pathways. That’s why heartbreak brings chest pain, poor sleep, appetite changes and palpitations, and why exercise endorphins help. In rare cases, severe stress can trigger Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also called “broken heart syndrome.”
4. Chronic stress after a breakup weakens the links between brain regions. That’s why focus, memory and everyday life admin fall apart. In extreme cases, the nervous system can go into a “dorsal vagal shutdown” (freeze) state of numbness, exhaustion and withdrawal.
5. Five steps to heal your brain after a breakup: (1) feel the pain with supportive people around you, (2) cut contact and remove triggers, (3) level the playing field with an “ick list,” (4) replace the void by changing your routines and surroundings, and (5) do things purely for joy and connection.

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