No More Bad Valentine's Days: Here are 3 Scientific Ways to Deal With a Painful Breakup

When a love full of lifelong promises ends, you are left with a type of pain that neither booze nor a series of nights out can mend

It is two in the morning and your eyes can barely read the self-help tip you desperately ransacked the internet for. You’ve broken up with a long-time partner and the unbearable pain feels like your chest is being scraped from within. For long periods of time, you drown yourself with heartbreaking songs that are suddenly more relatable now; you also cry over episodes of Bojack Horseman that, for some reason, sounds more philosophical than before.

But let’s be real, heartbreak is a gaping hole that none of these activities can fill.

Above Experts found that love is a learned motivation (Photo: Levi Meir Clancy/Unsplash)

This is heartbreak according to science

Many experts suggest that a bad breakup can lead to insomnia, intrusive thoughts, and even reduced immune function. According to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, remaining love feelings for an ex-partner are negatively associated with recovery from a breakup.

Researchers were able to gather a group of 24 heartbroken people, ages 20 to 37, who had just left their long-term relationship (for an average of 2.5 years). Some had been dumped, while others had ended their respective relationships. All of them were given three cognitive strategies:

Negative reappraisal of the ex-partner: Say it with me, “my ex doesn't even remember my birthday," “my ex has very poor driving skills.”
Reappraisal of love feelings: “It’s okay to love someone who doesn’t love me back,” “I accept that my love was not reciprocated,” “I was too much for my ex.”
Distraction: “Today I will start walking my dog more,” “I will meet and talk with my friends and we'll have the time of our lives.”

Negative reappraisal decreased love feelings and brought back the morale of all participants. Love reappraisal, on the other hand, did not change how in love or pleasant/unpleasant participants felt, while distraction did not change love feelings but made participants feel more pleasant.

The authors noted that love for another person is actually a “learned motivation,” similar to how you drink when you’re thirsty and eat when you’re hungry. When love is reciprocated, you will feel joy, or, in the case of a breakup, persistent love feelings are associated with anguish.

Above Walking your dog more often may serve as a distraction (Photo: Delphine Beausoleil/Unsplash)

Deal with it

Perhaps you’ve already read or heard it before, but here’s another iteration of the indisputable piece of advice: “time heals all wounds”. There are so many things that can happen in the course of one week, one year, or in one snap of a finger.

The way in which you want yourself to heal is up to you. You can pack your stuff and go on a road trip with friends, bask under the sun whilst sipping iced coffee, drink your tears, cry and party all night, or join a poetry slam.

There will be nights when the urge to seek closure from an ex-partner is stronger. This feeling is normal and acceptable, but remember that there are just some things that cannot be resolved by one discussion alone—this is why things are done between you and your lover in the first place.

One day, when the timing is right, nature might just take its course and leave you and your old flame alone at one picnic table; but if that day doesn't come, have the courage to become self-reliant and take your power back. Change your "what-would-have-beens" to "what-should-bes".

No squandered time

Countless love gurus, novelists, and even licensed experts have attempted to hack the gruelling process of heartbreak by listing all the helpful “what-to-do’s” and other forms of self-aggrandising activities.

But at the end of it all, no two heartbreaks are the same. Maybe the best thing to do is live with the pain and accept the fact that at 2 am, your mind wallows in nostalgia, you cry over relatable love songs and a cartoon show with a horse protagonist. One’s heartache is one’s responsibility.

The process of moving on, despite being savagely violent and long, is a time well spent. Just remember what our old friend Alfred Lord Tennyson used to say—

"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

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Tatler Asia

The Inevitable and Grueling Matter of the Heart: How to Deal With Breakups?

This is heartbreak according to science

Deal with it

No squandered time