How can you mend a broken heart?

0:00Kimberley Wilson:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. It's 2009 and we're in the German mountains. A man straps himself into a car on the world's most dangerous racetrack. He whispers to himself, it's time to put my balls on the dashboard. As he starts the engine. In 15 minutes, he's in an ambulance unconscious. In 15 years, he's a billionaire. This is Total Wolf, Formula One's most powerful team boss and the breakout star of Drive to Survive. This week on Good, Bad, Billionaire, how Toto Wolff made his billions. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hello and welcome. I'm Kimberley Wilson.

0:41Kimberley Wilson:I'm a counselling psychologist. And this, my friends, is Complex. The show about psychology and mental health. Today's episode is a Valentine's Day special and is all about how to mend a broken heart. I think it's timely. I think it's necessary. And I think a lot of us will be able to relate to it.

1:09Kimberley Wilson:Research tells us that 82 % of us have experienced it at some point in our lives. And about 14 % of us are going through it right now. Heartbreak is the stuff of sad love songs and poetry and Adele's entire career. It's something that a lot of us have heard about, relate to, understand, fear and also have felt. So whether you've been heartbroken or you've broken someone else's heart or you've experienced heartbreak for any reason, this is the episode for you. And what's interesting about this episode is it's one of the very few where we've had no submissions from listeners. So despite this being an almost universal human experience, it seems that there's something about heartbreak that we struggle to share and talk about.

2:07Kimberley Wilson:So allow this episode to be your support circle. And what I'm hoping is that you leave this episode with a little bit of information and feeling like you have some allies in your corner. And I will have an ally in my corner, a special guest to help me unpick the topic. So let me be your guide from the petrol station flowers of misinformation to the handmade truffles of understanding.

2:40Kimberley Wilson:Joining me today is psychotherapist and author Anna Maffa. Anna, thank you so much for being here. I'm so pleased you've agreed to be on the show for this topic.

2:49Anna Mathur:It's a pleasure. I can't wait to get stuck in. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yes, I'm a psychotherapist. I'm an author and a speaker. And basically, what I love doing is taking all the learnings, the insights and the wisdom from the therapy room and just finding any way to throw them out there into the world for people to grab hold of and benefit from in their day to day lives.

3:13Kimberley Wilson:Lovely. And what about with this specific topic? Do you have your own story of heartbreak?

3:18Anna Mathur:Yeah, I mean, it really took me back. Even as I was walking here, I was remembering being 16. And it was the first experience of, it was a breakup actually, and I'd had this boyfriend from 14. And we were very young, but it was a very intense relationship. we broke up and I just remember being absolutely bowled over by the enormity of the impact of grief really and upset and how it how it affected my sleep um even like what I was eating my relationships and it was yeah it was a shock to the system yeah it's really interesting because

3:58Kimberley Wilson:I think 16 was also my first experience of heartbreak I think in my case it was unrequited and it was very, it's very dramatic. And I was like, I'm never going to love again. But there's something really important about, I think, our understanding and experience of love and heartbreak in adolescence, because it starts to kind of shift and shape the way that we think about ourselves and think about relationships and perhaps how we build upon that going forward. So whether you are young and in the first springs of love and experiences of heartbreak, or whether you're of a more mature age and you're experiencing a different kind of loss I hope this conversation is going to be really helpful for people so let's get into the complexity let's do it

4:47Kimberley Wilson:if we can let's start with a definition how can we sum up heartbreak Anna I think it feels very

4:55Anna Mathur:physical it is the breaking of the heart it's loss isn't it it's love that has been disrupted and it's all the feelings and the emotional impact that comes from a love that stood as it did and

5:11Kimberley Wilson:then is no longer or it cannot exist in that way anymore so it's a love the loss of that love and then the sadness, the unbearable pain, the distress that comes with confronting that loss or absence.

5:29Anna Mathur:Yeah, and I think it can be a plunging into that state. It can be quite surprising. It can be quite sudden. Maybe there's a breakup that seems to come out of nowhere. But also, I think sometimes the heartbreak that comes from a dream and almost, you know, the way that we've always imagined life would pan out and kind of roll out in front of us. And suddenly we're having to confront the fact that that's going to look different and we don't know what that's going to look like.

5:56Kimberley Wilson:That's a kind of disenfranchised grief, isn't it? We have a clear sense that if you have a breakup or a bereavement, that seems legitimate and okay. But I also want people to hear that we can absolutely be legitimately heartbroken by things that felt theoretical or abstract that were dreams or hopes or ambitions that we held.

6:16Anna Mathur:Yeah, those things, whether it's a relationship, it might be a job, it might be the relationship connection that you have with a pet, something that feels like it forms some of the foundation of life as you know it, that you stand upon and you get comfort and connection and meaning from it. And then suddenly that foundation, it ruptures or it feels suddenly unstable or it feels like it's been swept from under your feet and then you're like, wow.

6:40Kimberley Wilson:Yes, or that sense of identity that this is who I am or who I thought I was or who I thought I was going to be. And now there's a real reconfiguration of my identity in having to kind of adjust to this new information that life has kind of thrown at me. I think one of the other big things is how heartbreak can feel really humiliating. You know, if we link it to a feeling of, say, rejection, So it's not just a loss, it's often I've been rejected, that person doesn't want me anymore or maybe life has rejected me in some way, the universe has rejected me in some way. And so that can come with feelings of humiliation and shame and that can cause us to kind of want to retreat into ourselves and kind of isolate.

7:28Anna Mathur:But I think it feels so individual the way that we cope with some of these feelings.

7:32Kimberley Wilson:Yes, absolutely. There will be lots of ways that people try to cope and things that we know will help. And that's what we want listeners to go away with from today's episode. So we have a sense of what heartbreak is. What is the impact of heartbreak on us?

7:48Anna Mathur:I think it has physical, emotional, mental impacts. It's loss, right? And I think as humans, we thrive on routine and familiarity. We like to know what our baseline is, what our normal is, and that ultimately makes us feel safe. Yes, we like adventure, but at the end of the day, we like to know that the normal is there to return to. So I think when that normal is changed or jeopardized or taken away, that period of kind of recalibration is huge.

8:17Kimberley Wilson:If we're thinking about something like a breakup, there's the breakup, there's the loss, but there's also the reasons. Like, I don't understand why it ended. And that can be its own pain, that kind of confusion.

8:29Anna Mathur:Yeah, kind of the big mental impact of maybe ruminating over that, trying to think about what might life look like when everything has changed. The physical impact, you know, to maybe suddenly feel alone. You know, you've had a partner or a pet. You've lost that connection as it stands. And I think it's that feeling of feeling quite untethered. That's a really good point.

8:52Kimberley Wilson:We believe that heartbreak is just psychological, but actually we know there is a real physical component. There was a study where they got a group of recently heartbroken people. And what they found was that the areas of the brain that manage physical pain also involved in managing the emotional pain of looking at the pictures of their ex-partners.

9:18Anna Mathur:And that's why I think that's where the term heartbreak is also rooted in because I remember a fairly kind of more recent experience of grief that felt very reminiscent to that breakup at 16. It hurt. My chest ached. You know, it ached. It felt like pressure. And I think it's so easy to overlook that physical impact. And we see that sleep is disrupted, eating is disrupted, all the hormonal systems and the circadian rhythms and the blood pressure and the level of cortisol, you know, it's a stressor on your body. That this other person or

9:51Kimberley Wilson:this dream or this pet actually played a role in regulating our nervous systems. And that in their absence, suddenly we're having, as you said, to kind of do that regulation again independently. And we even have something called heartbreak syndrome, which is technically called takotsubo cardiomyopathy, where the psychological pain can cause harm to the heart. And we think that's due to the adrenaline that stuns the heart muscles. This psychological stress has a real physical effect.

10:23Anna Mathur:Yeah. And isn't that so affirming that this is a physical process as well that you're going through? I think it can sometimes help alleviate some of that shame or that guilt for, why am I finding this so painful? Yes, why is it so hard? It's mental and it is biologically, measurably a physical process too.

10:42Kimberley Wilson:Yeah, we see that for adolescents, for example, it's a risk factor for later depression. And especially for anyone, in the first 30 days after a breakup, it's a risk for stroke and heart attacks.

10:54Anna Mathur:Yeah, and I guess that 30-day mark is probably where you're starting to just come to terms with the fact that this is real. You know, maybe that initial shock has worn off and it's like, wow, my life is different now. Even if you know that relationship wasn't good, it is still massively disruptive and a big thing to process.

11:17Kimberley Wilson:and I also want to extend a friendly arm to those who have been doing the heartbreaking I've broken up with people more than I have been broken up with and it's still really painful like when you love someone but you know that the relationship isn't working or maybe you're

11:36Anna Mathur:growing in different directions there's still a sadness and a loss yeah and sometimes I think it can be a really brave and generous thing to do to end a relationship that you know if it's not right for you ultimately it's also not right for them and it's just hard because these things are

11:54Kimberley Wilson:often complicated multi-layered so it's not neat and tidy the experience of heartbreaking any of its forms and often recovery isn't neat and tidy either if we could put heartbreak on a scale what would it look like?

12:11Anna Mathur:Well I think mild might just be maybe a shorter relationship and actually you just both acknowledge this is a good move perhaps there hasn't been a huge amount of kind of shared experiences and it just feels like painful and a bit sad. So it's not quite as hard to disentangle. Yeah the disentanglement I think and that kind of finding a new normal maybe they haven't become so intertwined and interwoven with your day-to-day life that that doesn't feel like a huge thing to do and maybe at the other end of the scale it might be just years of kind of intertwining or the kind of the depth and vulnerability that you shared with that person maybe that was a big thing for you to be able to do or maybe you know children and financially

12:54Kimberley Wilson:this kind of disentangling and children can be heartbroken by those losses that might be a really significant heartbreak that they take forward and that it can shape and restructure the way they see themselves and understand their role in the world.

13:08Anna Mathur:We experience things differently depending on what supportive networks we have around us and what tools we've been equipped with. If we've grown up perhaps with caregivers that welcome emotion, make space for emotion, help you ride the waves of intense emotion, then you may feel more equipped then to believe and trust in the fact that the intensity of this period is survivable and will pass and that you can turn to people and you value expressing and putting words to those emotions and letting people support you. But for some, maybe they don't have those tools yet. And this is the first time they're going to have to learn that actually you need people around you.

13:47Anna Mathur:So let's get into the tools.

13:49Kimberley Wilson:And like so much of psychological life, there is no handbook, there's no guidelines. But how do we cope? There was a study last year that uncovered 84 different ways that people tried to mend their broken hearts. They were trying to shift their focus and distract themselves. They reached out to other people. They tried to start new relationships. They had casual encounters. So people were kind of doing a whole range of different things to try to get over this awful, overwhelming feeling. What would you suggest as an effective way to help people mend their broken hearts?

14:29Anna Mathur:Do you know what? I think one of my top things to recommend was that even if you might feel hopeless, you might be standing there with your broken heart thinking, I don't even know what my future looks like. I can't withstand this pain. But I would encourage you to find stories of hope. Sometimes your own story may well contain some stories of hope for you. And if you feel like you can't find hope for your future, read books, listen to podcasts, explore stories where other people have come out and they've said, yes, that was rough. But goodness me, I couldn't have imagined the growth. And maybe sometimes a post-traumatic growth, and I think we often don't talk enough about it.

15:11Anna Mathur:Tell us about it. Post-traumatic growth is that awareness that we grow through some of the darkest, most painful times, that we can come out with a new perspective, We can come out having learnt so much about ourselves and other people. We can come out feeling strengthened by that kind of refining fire of difficult times.

15:31Kimberley Wilson:And I would also add a little time perspective into that as well, because often it feels terrible in the moment and we think it will feel terrible forever. But whether something is good or bad is so often a case of time and perspective, right? And so if you can just, in your mind, give yourself the possibility, create the space that I might feel differently about this in a little while. Yeah. And I just need to wait, take care of myself and reach out to people and just give myself a little time to get that different perspective. I love that.

16:11Anna Mathur:It's the waiting, isn't it? I think we find that really uncomfortable. Waiting is so hard. We're wired to avoid pain. We don't want to hurt. And I think, A, it's about valuing that process and knowing that even just moving through the minutes, the hours, the days, just because you might not feel like you're proactively doing anything to speed it up. it's knowing that actually time is such an ally in itself you know the further we kind of move away from the breakup the more experiences that we have maybe you go back to the place near somewhere you had a date and that first time it really hurts but you go with a friend and you have some nice moments and what you're doing is you're kind of layering new experiences on top of and around that that grief so it's not making it smaller it's just carrying on with life and trusting that those new memories and those new experiences will help kind of soften it a little bit.

17:05Kimberley Wilson:Yeah so building and enriching your life around and beyond the heartbreak is really important and there's actually another really surprising intervention that we found in the research and this isn't not necessarily a recommendation but some studies have found that actually paracetamol can lessen that experience of that emotional pain which is I share simply just to reiterate that it is physical there is a physical association so the things that you might do to help your body like warm baths gentle walks nourishing food they can be part of your recovery kind of toolkit as well yeah that made me think about something that I'm