It's called heartbreak, but when science writer Florence Williams' marriage of 25 years ended, her sadness and grief had an impact way beyond her heart.
She lost weight, stopped sleeping, even developed diabetes. It affected her at a cellular level. She set out to understand why emotional pain can lead to physical pain and illness in her new book Heartbreak: A Personal And Scientific Journey.
Photo: Pexels
She says a sense of distance and then signs of infidelity culminated in her break-up.
“We were at a point of disconnection, I would say. Long marriages go through periods where you feel things are great and then others when you feel they’re not so great. I was kind of hopeful that we were just at a period when we were really focused on our jobs and things would come back together.
“But one night I saw an email that my husband had written to another woman and I was really shocked. That was the start of the end.”
The emotional pain that followed was so intense and unrelenting that it compelled her to try to understand why it hurt so much and why her body seemed to be breaking down because of it.
Her skills as a science journalist helped in that journey, as she spoke to neuroscientists, psychologists and immune-geneticists. As she processed her pain and the data she was getting from experts she was amazed at the what she’d learned.
Her journey started after meeting biological anthropologist Angela Fisher at a conference. Fisher is well-known for her studies on what happens when people fall in love and grow a connection.
When she mentioned her divorce, Fisher said she could tell her exactly what was happening in her brain, having scanned the brains of those who’d had their hearts broken in failed relationships.
Williams says as mammals we are designed to be in love and that a powerful emotional bond leads to a powerful physiological attachment.
“When we are with a long-term partner are heart rates align, are respiratory rhythms align. Even our brain wave patterns tend to sync-up. If it’s a relatively good relationship, we tend to feel safe with that person… and it’s when they disappear our body understands that something is very wrong.
“That’s why we kind of go into a state of threat, because our bodies and brains don’t really make the distinction in being rejected in love and being literally abandoned to fend for ourselves off in the Savannah.”
Grief is a part of that experience, but with romantic love there is so much else going on, Williams says.
“There’s this sense of a changed identity. There’s a sense of rejection, shame and guilt. There is a tremendous amount of anxiety about your self-worth and self-esteem, and a tremendous anxiety for the future. Who are you going to be without this person and how are you going pay for health insurance… There are all sorts of logistical and philosophical questions that you have to deal with.”
The physiological effects of breaking up for Williams initially involved a sensation of being centred elsewhere in her stomach and a tightness in her chest, as well as a generalised state of anxiety.
Hyper-vigilance and lack of sleep predominated her life.
Immuno-geneticist Steve Cole, based at University of Los Angeles, took blood samples at particular points after William's split and found genetic markers for inflammation in white blood cells, as well as identifying a reduced immune response. She got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Her emotional state was driving a negative and destructive physiological response in her body.
“We’ve known for a long time that lonely people die earlier," she says. "We know that they suffer more from a number of chronic illnesses, ranging from diabetes and metabolic disease to cardiovascular disease, to certain kinds of cancers. Being lonely is the equivalent of smoking in terms of your health and life expectancy.”
Part of her research brought her to Japan as she looked at the health of people who survived a earthquake during the mid-1990s. A type of heart condition increased.
“I found that heart break isn’t just a metaphor," she says. "Actually, our hearts can break and do break when we are existentially freaked out, such as after divorce or suffering acute grief, or in a collective kind of grief, such as after an earthquake or other natural disasters.
“We know that cases of a certain kind of heart failure Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (broken-heart syndrome) increased after the earthquake in Japan in 1994… and the name it Takotsubo because what happens is the left ventricle of the heart balloons out like an octopus pot and the heart is effectively unable to pump blood in the presence of these stress hormones.
She says it’s particularly common in post-menopausal women, but also in men who get upset about something dear to them.
Divorce can have a huge impact of on people's lives and the early years after the incident can cause all kinds of disease.
“It turns out that divorce is surprisingly bad for your health, especially for the first four years after the divorce," she says.
"There have been general studies on general heart failure and other diseases and we know that it takes about four years for people to return to baseline after divorce.”
About 15 percent of people don’t get over their heart break, Williams adds.
Unfortunately the science suggests we are designed to suffer heart break. In this sense, she says, nature holds a gun to our head when we fall in love, although it does serve a purpose.
“Perhaps one of the adapted reasons for that is we are supposed to feel bad when our mate leaves, so that we wait for our mate. If our mate disappears for a while a lot of stress hormones go on and we get very agitated.
"It helps us to look for our missing mate and wait. It makes it worth while because if we do wait for our missing mate there are a lot of awards in species that are monogamous and are pair bound.”
There’s no cure for a broken heart but you can mitigate its effects. Williams spent 30 days in the wilderness, connecting with nature, which she said helped. Being in nature and appreciating forms of beauty is good for the soul and a healthy distraction from pain.
Psychedelics are also useful for some people. Williams tried micro-dosing under the strict supervision of a licensed clinician, after hearing it benefited people with post-traumatic stress disorder. She believed it would also help gain a new perspective on life.
“The idea is that your consciousness recedes. There’s no more voice in your head helping you go through the world, which in some cases making your journey difficult because that voice is reliving all your bad memories and telling you what to do about them.
“That’s what happened. I really did experience this loss of ego. I had this amazing psychedelic set of visions in which I was like a filament of light and I was surrounded by other filaments of light. I couldn’t tell which filament was me and which filament was someone else. It was intensely beautiful.
“When it was over I really did feel less afraid of the future and more ready to say goodbye to my marriage and my ex and move forward with some optimism.”
Williams' book highlights three ways to pull back from heart break.
First you need to calm down, and away from the fight or flight state, she says. Being in nature or with friends helps.
Connecting with beauty, by either being in nature and/or authentic people and friends can allow you to do so.
Thirdly, you must find or rediscover purpose and meaning to your life.
“If you can extract any meaning from what happened, any lessons learned that you can talk moving forward to help any other people through this experience as well," she says.
Getting out there and meeting someone may be as a distraction from pain and a boost to self-esteem. “Proceed with caution, but it can be really helpful,” she says.
Her own heart feels light, open and healthy, despite the scars of loss.
“I actually feel more open to love. More open to beauty, more open to experience. I feel more capable of love. In a way that’s really what life’s all about, so I’m grateful for the experience.”
