Emotional breakup affects your health

DR MAXWELL ADEYEMI

THE STRESS of relationship breakdown can be psychologically crippling and emotionally paralysing for some people. In addition, it can adversely affect the body's physiology in many ways that your health can be impaired. Heartbreak can kill people mentally, psychologically and physically.

Withdrawal symptoms

They say love is a drug, and it turns out people do suffer withdrawal symptoms from their partner after splitting up, similar to the craving drug addicts experience for cocaine.

The anguish experienced during a split activates the same part of the brain that is stimulated during addiction.

Analysis of brain scans of the brokenhearted showed similarities between romantic rejection and cocaine craving.

Depression, anxiety and insomnia

After a breakup, people are at risk of suffering depression and anxiety, conditions which can bring on insomnia, and are also in turn made worse by a lack of sleep.

The anguish of a breakup brings back deep-seated memories about being abandoned as a child that everyone holds – even without knowing it.

A human is programmed to need human contact, and to be affected when human contact is withdrawn.

So, a breakup revokes those emotions and makes us feel insecure, angry and sad.

People go through a similar bereavement process during a breakup as when someone has died.

They go through the bereavement cycle, typically shock, denial, grief, anger, blame, self-blame, helplessness, fear of the future, depression and then acceptance.

If people feel abandoned but don’t feel anger, they become depressed, they lose confidence in their ability to have a relationship in the future.

They become anxious, they may relive conversations and the breakup in their minds. They may not sleep, which makes anxiety and depression worse.

Heart attack

After a breakup or a divorce, the body is flooded with stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline.

This leads to the heart beating faster and triggers abnormal heart rhythms.

People start worrying, the adrenaline levels go up, the body goes into "fight or flight mode" and the stress can cause a sudden heart attack and death.

They go pale, the heart starts beating too fast. When it does that, you have a narrowing in the arteries which is not normally significant, but it comes significant when stressed.

Even if you don’t have a heart attack this can cause irregular heartbeat and rapid heartbeat.

For people who have this kind of stress, it's like putting your heart on a hard drug like cocaine. Stress can even bring on the symptoms of a heart attack even if the arteries are not blocked.

Women tend to die suddenly in the short term after a breakup, but more men die of heart attacks in the long term.

Skin disorder

The stress hormones released after a breakup can aggravate the skin. Skin conditions such as psoriasis, eczema, alopecia and acne deteriorate after a breakup, due to a cocktail of hormones surging through the body. A breakup is naturally one of the biggest things that can happen in a person’s life, comparable to bereavement.

A cocktail of stress hormones floods the body and can damage health in all sorts of ways. Anecdotal evidence shows stress and depression are linked with a deterioration of psoriasis, eczema, alopecia and even acne. Not only do stress hormones trigger changes in skin, people might become distracted after a breakup and let their treatment regime slide.

Loss of appetite, weight gain and digestive problems

People are often too lovesick to eat in the first few weeks after a breakup. This is because when stressed, a part of the brain called the hypothalamus produces a hormone which suppresses appetite.

The brain also sends messages to adrenal glands on the kidneys to pump out adrenaline, which triggers the body’s fight or flight response, which puts eating on hold. But in the long term, stress causes weight gain, especially around the middle.

It makes the cells less sensitive to the hormone insulin, and so the body produces more insulin in response. But insulin turns sugar into fat, increasing the rate at which fat is stored in the body and leading to weight gain.

It also causes the body to crave sugar and fat, which leads to mindless eating. Stressed people also lose sleep, exercise less, and drink more alcohol, all of which can lead to them piling on the pounds.

Stress also diverts blood away from the digestive system, which can lead to stomach pain, diarrhoea and constipation.

Puffy eyes

Scientists have discovered that we shed different "types" of tears. Basal tears are released to keep the eyes moist, and reflex tears are released in response to irritants, such as when a person chops onion.

Tears associated with emotional crying are called psychic tears and are produced by the lacrimal gland, located in the upper corner of the eyelids. They are more watery and less salty than basal and reflex tears.

Emotional tears overflow, spill down the cheeks and drain through tiny ducts in the back of the nose. So, because of the process of osmosis, the water moves into the saltier tissues of the eyes, which makes them swell up and look puffy. Lots of rubbing with tissues can also make them red and sore.

It is always wise to seek help in dealing with your issues after an emotional and relationship trauma, specially if you perceive you are not coping well.

Seek professional help and counselling to deal with mental health issues and medical issues that may arise from emotional stress or relationship breakups and difficulties.

Contact Dr Maxwell on 3631807 or 7575411