There’s a pivotal moment in an episode of The Simpsons that has always stood out in my memory. When Lisa tells Ralph Wiggum she doesn’t want to be his girlfriend, his face scrunches in agony and he clutches his heart as if it’s literally breaking. I remember giggling at the exaggeration and then years later when my own heart got broken, I put my hand to my chest and felt his pain.
The word “heartbreak” is bandied about so much we often forget that, along with depression and loss of appetite, physical heart pain is an actual side effect of high-stress events like the loss of loved ones. The grief from a breakup or death can be so consuming that it’s actually heart wrenching and can have serious consequences for our physical health, too.
The Physical Effects of a Broken Heart
Anyone who has experienced real heartbreak knows that it’s not just a melodramatic term. The aching, tight feeling that accompanies such sadness is uncomfortable, but usually not disconcerting. However, for people with broken heart syndrome, it feels scarily similar to a heart attack—in fact, most people are diagnosed after being taken to the emergency room.
Broken heart syndrome, also known as stress cardiomyopathy, is a sudden weakness in the heart muscle due to a severely stressful situation. It has the same symptoms as a heart attack—difficulty breathing, chest pain, and a drop in blood pressure—but while a heart attack permanently damages the heart, broken heart syndrome’s effects are temporary. Also, heart attacks are caused by blocked coronary arteries; people can experience stress cardiomyopathy without existing blockages. This important difference is often how doctors determine one from the other.
In 2005, researchers at John Hopkins University discovered the distinction when they studied the hearts of patients dealing with deaths of family members, car accidents, financial woes, and other anxiety triggers. They postulated that being under such stress causes the brain to release a constant stream of stress hormones like adrenaline into the blood, which makes heart vessels work too hard and reduces pumping strength. However, this is but one theory—doctors are still trying to determine exactly why adrenaline surges affect heart muscle cells the same way that heart attacks do.
