{"id":17132,"date":"2018-07-30T01:00:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T08:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/datemixstaging.wpengine.com\/?p=17132"},"modified":"2021-05-31T11:18:38","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T18:18:38","slug":"happens-brain-breakup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoosk.com\/date-mix\/relationship-advice\/breaking-up\/happens-brain-breakup\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens to Your Brain During a Breakup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One moment you\u2019re in love, then the next they\u2019re gone. You\u2019re in anguish. You\u2019re tired, but can\u2019t sleep. You tell all your friends about how horrible your partner was, then the next moment you\u2019re trying to win them back. Anyone who\u2019s been through a bad breakup will tell you about the madness and grief involved, but almost none of us can say exactly why a breakup pushes us to our psychological limits. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find some answers, we chatted with biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher about her work studying the science of love. Dr. Fisher is a senior research fellow with the Kinsey Institute and author of \u201c<\/span>Anatomy of Love<\/span><\/a>.\u201d Dr. Fisher has over four decades of research in the field of relationship patterning and the science of love, which makes her an expert on what happens to our brains when we\u2019re in love and during a breakup.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lover\u2019s Brain<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To understand what happens to our brain during a breakup, we have to understand what happens to our brains when we\u2019re in love. Whether you\u2019re a swooner or obsessed with love there are three major brain regions that control us when we\u2019re impassioned by a romantic partner: the ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, and the ventral pallidum.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA)
\n<\/b>\u201cThe ventral tegmental area is a little factory at the base of the brain that actually makes dopamine and sends dopamine to many brain regions, giving you the energy and focus to win this person or win this person back,\u201d explains Fisher.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dopamine is a chemical neurotransmitter in your brain associated with happiness and that high flying feeling. This \u201cdopamine factory\u201d is a small region located at the center bottom of your brain and produces the energy, focus, and motivation you feel when you fall hard in love. If you\u2019re the type to scribble syrupy love poems in your notebook or see visions of your partner everywhere you look, you can thank your VTA for that.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The Nucleus Accumbens
\n<\/b>\u201c[The nucleus accumbens] region becomes active with all of the substance addictions and all of the behavioral addictions,\u201d says Fisher. \u201cIt also becomes active with romantic love. So we\u2019ve been able to prove that romantic love can be a perfectly wonderful addiction when it\u2019s going well, because that same brain region, the nucleus accumbens, is active when you\u2019re madly and happily in love, but it\u2019s really accentuated when you\u2019ve been rejected in love.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yikes. So the same brain region that\u2019s responsible for a cocaine or gambling addiction is also responsible for your connection to your partner..<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. The Ventral Pallidum
\n<\/b>This last little brain region is a tiny kernel-sized region located under the nucleus accumbens towards the front bottom of the brain. This region is associated with feelings of attachment to a partner that builds over time. The ventral pallidum is like the clause of a contract that seals the deal and locks it in for the long-term.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Breakup Brain<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The VTA, the nucleus accumbens, and ventral pallidum form a strong biological system to keep you and your partner attached. It\u2019s a left-right-left combo to get you excited, hooked, and coming back for more. When we\u2019re fully committed to a relationship, our brain chemistry shifts and we reorder our lives for our lovers. We become different on a very fundamental level, making it all the more painful when our partner leaves us. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we\u2019re rejected romantically our system is disrupted and we\u2019re left to pick up the pieces. There are two phases to the break up process: protest and despair. If they sound dramatic, it\u2019s because it is. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Fisher has studied breakups through fMRI scans, ethnographic studies of various cultures, poetry, UN demographic documents, and endless amount of psychological studies, and, surprise, the data is conclusive\u2014heartbreak is a cross-cultural phenomenon, dating back millions of years.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The Protest Phase
\n<\/b>\u201cYou just try harder to win the person back. You may get angry and say you\u2019ll never see the person again, but an hour later you\u2019ll be call them back to work it out,\u201d says Fisher. \u201cYou have even higher energy, focus, and motivation than when you first fall happily in love. You\u2019ll try to seduce them, you\u2019ll try to make your partner jealous by going out with other people, you\u2019ll try to sit down and talk about it. You\u2019ll try to change yourself in various ways.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sound familiar? Protest is basically what it sounds like\u2014you\u2019re trying to fight the decision of the breakup. When a lover leaves us our life is disturbed, our attachment is broken, and the source of our addiction is cut off. This is the stage when we\u2019re actively trying to overturn the decision of that breakup.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The Despair Phase
\n<\/b>\u201cDuring this resignation stage your energy falls,\u201d explains Fisher, \u201cYou just lie around, lethargic and depressed. It\u2019s a little bit like what happens if you take a baby puppy away from its mother and put it by itself in the kitchen.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the phase where we usually start polishing pints of ice cream. We watch reruns on Netflix. Sometimes daily grooming can seem like a major effort. Our friends start to worry about us. Remember the nucleus accumbens? Well, that little addiction center is triggering a withdrawal.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re going through a breakup, it\u2019s like a form of temporary insanity. We\u2019re not ourselves, but the science says that\u2019s how it\u2019s supposed to be. Feeling pain, sadness, and withdrawal is part of the process of moving on. But once you understand that love madness and love sadness are built deep into our biology in a way that isn\u2019t exactly in our control, you can feel a little bit better about how you feel. In many ways, love is an addiction and a breakup is a forced intervention. The pain is real, but it\u2019s part of the process. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like substance or behavioral addiction, recovery from a bad breakup takes time. Let\u2019s take it as we can, one breath at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If being in love is similar to having an addiction, what happens when that addiction ends? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":162,"featured_media":17133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[983],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-up"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Happens to Your Brain During a Breakup<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The science behind what happens to your brain during a breakup and what that reveals about why breakups feel so hard when we're in them.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zoosk.com\/date-mix\/relationship-advice\/breaking-up\/happens-brain-breakup\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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