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This year I've been really rethinking my relationship with alcohol and so I decided to commit to dry January to really kickstart 2025 and just test myself.
Heineken 00 is the perfect companion for dry January because you feel like you're still participating when you're out for dinner with friends, out for drinks whilst you're still meeting your lifestyle goals.
I'm a big beer fan, so I also love the taste of Heineken 00 plus being alcohol free.
You can enjoy whenever refreshment calls.
Heineken 00 is available at your local Heineken retailer or for delivery at Heineken dot com.
You must be 21 plus to purchase.
Enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with dry January.
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Hello and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast.
Welcome back to a new episode, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world.
I am so stoked to have you here for perhaps my most highly requested podcast episode of all time.
Every week I receive so many DMS from people who have had their hearts absolutely shattered, who have been through the worst breakup of their lives, who are grieving the end of a relationship.
And today we're going to tackle all of it.
We're going to discuss the nitty gritty science and research and psychology behind our brains and our bodies and our emotions during a breakup.
Why they leave such lasting emotional scars and how we can essentially move on and really begin to realize the best versions of ourselves in the midst of heartache.
On a personal note, those who have listened to the show for a while will know that this podcast emerged from the ruins of a relationship, one that I had in my early 20s.
And this show, this podcast, all that it's become, it was kind of my savior, my little passion project that got me through a rough time and allowed me to really reclaim a lot of my identity and my independence.
And that very ex actually came on the show a few months back.
But right as I was beginning to heal from that breakup, I started seeing someone else.
I can safely say it was never very serious in the way that my previous relationship was.
I never really dreamed of marrying this person and, you know, God forbid, having children with him, let alone a lease or a mortgage.
But when it came to an end, it crushed me.
It destroyed me in a way that for the last eight to 10 months, I really never thought I was going to recover from.
It's really funny how our brains take these intense romantic experiences and do not let go.
And I spent so many weeks and months almost begging my mind to move on, to stop obsessing and thinking about all the what ifs.
And then the other day, a flip just kind of switched in my brain.
I was driving home from somewhere.
I don't really remember where.
And for all of my Taylor Swift fans out there, the song Clean came on.
Honestly, number one breakup song.
But I just had this weird epiphany where I was like, yeah, I'm ready to move on now.
And I'm ready to make this episode.
I've read so many books.
I've done the research for my own sake.
I've done the work, been to therapy, consulted all of my friends who would listen.
So let's talk about it.
And I really want to talk to my fellow 20 something year olds who are going through or have gone through the exact same thing.
Breakups are hard. But they are incredibly confusing and raw and terrible.
But they are also such a sacred time, I think, for self growth and personal development.
You know, I don't believe I would be the person I am today without the formative breakups that I've gone through in my 20s.
They each have taught me something so unique and completely diverted my life path.
It's also such a common pattern of behavior to leave or exit a relationship and suddenly become like really obsessed with the gym or your work to find that you have more time for your friends and for your family and for yourself.
And I believe it's because this experience presents such a pivotal time to realize the best version of yourself, even whilst we're still, you know, often hurting and grieving.
You know, two complex versions of ourselves, two emotional states, can exist at once.
So what I want to do today is break down that complexity and reveal what's really going on neurologically and psychologically when our relationships come to an end.
We are going to cover what happens to our brains in the weeks and months following a breakup, why we react the way we do, why the experience is so uniquely painful.
We're going to discuss how we can actually apply the stages of grief to the end of a relationship and why actually sometimes it's our shorter relationships that can be so much more significant.
Of course, we can't talk about breakups without a discussion on heartbreak, but also how we can move on and heal.
What advice does psychology have for us in those moments when we are so done with the relationship, so ready to move on, but still feel really stuck in the past and in the memories of the person and what was.
For my heartbroken people out there, for those on the mend, those who are grieving, this episode is for you.
I've been there. I know your pain and I want to give you the guidance and the advice that I so wished that I'd had earlier.
So without further ado, let's break down the psychology of breakups, the psychology of heartbreak and how to heal, how to flourish, how to let go.
I think that heartbreak is a universal experience for those of us in our 20s.
We spend this decade dating and figuring out what we like, falling in love so effortlessly and carelessly, believing that these characters are the loves of our lives.
And then one day, it's all over.
And whether you are the one who ended things or not, both parties are left picking up the pieces.
It's an incredibly powerful experience, sometimes life -changing or is memorable.
I think evidence of that is how fascinated we are by the end of relationships.
We talk about it all the time, we discuss it with our friends, people write some of the greatest songs of all time on the back of a bad breakup, entire genres of movies and books and televisions is created on the premise of heartache and heartbreak because the emotional and even physical impact is so profound
and significant. So what exactly goes on in our brains at the end of a relationship?
I think human connection is incredibly beautiful and, you know, love, well that's one of the best feelings out there.
Some would really argue it's our entire reason for being to be seen by someone else and cared for and understood.
Well, not only do I hope that that's been everyone's experience, but it really does change how our brain interprets the world.
The saying goes that love is a drug, but it's actually not just a saying, it's very much true.
Falling in love releases so many powerful neurotransmitters and chemicals like dopamine, like serotonin, like oxytocin, all of which are really important for pleasure and passion, bonding and other intense feelings.
Researchers have found that intense feelings of romantic love affect the brain in the same way as powerful drugs.
This professor, Dr.
Helen Fisher, she's an anthropologist and a relationship researcher, she conducted a series of studies on this very interaction between our brain chemistry and the feeling of love.
Specifically she found that the same chemicals, that is massive amounts of dopamine and serotonin, are in play as interwithdrawal.
You've spent, you know, the last six months, the last five years, however long it may be, receiving that stimulation and the release of these powerful neurotransmitters, and then it drops off.
And the brain is left scrambling for more, trying to re -establish that sense of homeostasis and normalcy.
So post -breakup, especially if you go no contact, which I would definitely recommend, and we'll talk about that later, but your brain enters basically a state of acute wanting.
And it makes it really difficult for us to focus on anything other than that person that we're missing.
In fact, this relative kind of deficit in the neurotransmitters associated with pleasurable feelings and happiness, but also with that person, it can even give rise to symptoms that resemble clinical depression or withdrawal.
And that is the love withdrawal hypothesis.
Struggle for me, you know, I mentioned my last breakup and how much it shook me up, but the hardest part of that was knowing without a doubt that I could do better, but my heart still hurt so deeply because my brain was in the process of healing, and healing and addiction to this other person.
This really links with another explanation.
I'm just realizing that there are so many cliche phrases about breakups that we're talking about today.
It was totally unintentional, but I think it really goes to show how much of our culture and our language is really influenced by this experience.
I'm sure we've all heard people talk about the end of a relationship and say how their heart is crushed or their heart is broken.
We hear people wail and sob and talk about, you know, this almost physical pain that they're in.
You know, you don't really understand that pain until you've been through it.
And we often dismiss this level of suffering as overdramatic or exaggerated, but the science shows that getting our heart broken is very much comparable to real physical pain, much like breaking an arm.
This pain, it's not just in the body, it's also in the mind.
And that is especially the case for an emotional pain as profound as detaching from someone we were super attached to.
MRI scans on the brain have shown that the withdrawal of romantic love activates the very same parts of the brain which are triggered when you're in physical pain.
Similar to the previous study we talked about, these researchers in the US, what they did was they showed people pictures of their exes and then they looked at what areas of the brain lit up compared to when they were shown neutral pictures of their family or their friends.
They compared these images of the brain and what they found was it was really similar to the brain scans, like that, breaking up with them.
It can make you feel as though everything you've put into that relationship was, at the end of the day, wasted.
A reaction to this is that we can become quite jaded.
This was definitely my experience.
I cannot tell you the amount of times that I told my friends I would never date again.
After every unsuccessful relationship or situation or date, I would just almost reinforce this sense to myself that I was going to be happy being alone.
And I truly convinced myself of that but I think deep down I always knew that that wasn't true, that I was jaded.
We all want someone who was our person.
Despite being scared of being hurt again, it was really important for me to realise that my brain had subconsciously learnt this connection between love and trust and hurt through the repetition of these.
And I think it relates really perfectly to this next theory I want to touch on.
Essentially, it explained this kind of anecdotal idea or theory around the journey we go through in the months after heartbreak.
You know, we travel through this period of grief, then we kind of try and get back out there, date around, have a few unsuccessful experiences and we hurt.
And her theory wasn't wrong, it was kind of spot on.
Our journey through a breakup can actually be mapped on to this stages of grief that psychologists typically use to explain our reaction to death or to loss.
This psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler -Ross, she adapted this theory in the late sixties to talk about the loss incurred by a breakup.
Yes, that person is still alive, they're not dead, but the relationship isn't.
And I think it sometimes makes it more complicated in my opinion, knowing that that person is still out there, but for whatever reason our reality has shifted completely.
And it can take our mind some time to really adjust to this new reality, these new circumstances, and that's denial.
That's where we almost haven't really processed what's happened.
Life doesn't feel like it's changed much.
But for my heartbroken people out there, we know that that doesn't last long before the anger sets in.
Anger is a completely normal reaction to extreme emotional discomfort, and it often flows out of us a lot easier than sadness because it's a fairly uncomplicated emotion.
Anger, especially combative anger, it also tends to be the first thing we actually feel when we start releasing all those pent up emotions associated with a breakup.
I see this all the time in friends of mine who have broken up with their partners.
It always starts really civil, they wish them the best, they say they're fine.
And then like three logical state of mind, as hard as it is.
There was a reason that relationship didn't work, and that reason is a strong enough reason to not contemplate getting back together with them.
And I think that's where we move on to the next stage, which is depression.
I have this theory that this stage of the breakup, the depression stage, is really what people envision when we talk about heartache or we talk about a breakup.
It's the misery, it's the 2am tears, the long drives in your car, the breakup playlist, waiting for a text back, the pain, all the hard stuff, all the difficult emotions.
During our experience of processing grief, there comes a time when all of our emotions and our imaginations and our bargaining begins to slow down.
And we start to really understand the state and the situation that we're in and kind of what we're faced with, which is that this person is no longer part of your life.
And that's something that you really have to accept.
So in this relationship, it's not going to be smooth sailing.
The amount of people that I've dated who have started seeing someone like 2 months after we've broken up, and then like a year later have like come crawling back is astounding.
Because you can't undo a relationship with the click of your fingers, you're using someone else as a distraction.
And if you haven't taken the time to properly journey through the stages of grief, if you've skipped past that essential emotional work, you haven't accepted what's happened.
And you haven't fully processed your emotions or what that relationship meant to you.
So essentially what ends up happening is you use someone else as a distraction from the hard feelings.
Five months later, six months later, you're back at square one.
I think what I'm essentially trying to say is that these individuals, they skip over all the important parts, and they don't process your emotions.
They don't process their emotions, and they just assume that they've reached acceptance.
And acceptance, of course, is the final stage.
If you've moved through all those other stages, like this isn't a pass -go situation, you have to go through it.
You have to go through the trenches.
When we come to a place of acceptance, it's not that we no longer miss the person, that we no longer feel pain.
All that sadness and regret can still be present in this phase.
But you also start to feel at peace.
You rationally come back to yourself.
You accept that it is, you know, it is what it is, that it happened for a reason, that it needed to happen.
You made the right choice, and you start looking forward and maybe even dating again.
But also, more importantly, you forgive yourself because you're now able to accurately reflect on the relationship and see what went wrong.
At this stage, I think reconciliation is possible but a warning to the wise.
I honestly don't think that you can be friends with your ex.
I don't think that reconciliation will work in most cases, psychological wisdom on how to move on and fully let go.
You are in luck because that is what I want to talk about next in just a moment.
Here is the brutal, honest truth.
If you want to truly let go of someone after the end of a relationship, you need to disconnect from them entirely.
It can be really easy to keep touching base, you know, seeing each other after things have ended, but I promise you that we'll only elongate the process of emotional and physical detachment.
All of the science and the psychology says that the months after a breakup are in essence a period of withdrawal.
You're trying to eliminate your brain's addiction to this person and the feeling that they bring you, but if you keep finding ways to see them, sleeping with them, talking, you give your brain what we call invariable reward or reinforcement, which only promotes the obsession and the difficulty in breaking
things off completely.
Every time you see your ex, especially in a manner that is reminiscent of your past romantic relationship, your brain receives a dopamine hit and it reinforces that pathway or learned conditioning between this person and the warm, fuzzy feelings that we receive.
I hate to say it, I know it's not always a popular opinion, but no contact truly is your friend if your aim is to let go, if your aim is to move on.
From my own personal experience, I know that decision is a lot harder than the easier path of kind of keeping in touch, but I promise you in three months time you will be thinking yourself because it's important to remember that breakups aren't just social, they're not just emotional, they are neurological,
and your brain is the basis of your attachment and your obsession with this person.
So if you break the habit, you'll find that you'll heal quicker, block their number and follow them right now.
You don't need to see what they're doing, you don't need to see what parties they're attending, what people they're with.
It's like scratching an itch.
It may feel good, but the sting will only come back stronger later.
No contact is your friend as hard as it may be.
We know from research that the end of a relationship causes a plunge in dopamine and serotonin levels, hence why we often enter I think a pretty dark state in many ways that kind of mimics even the symptoms of depression.
Additionally, I think exposure to our past memories with someone and their images or thoughts of them, it activates some of the very same brain regions that interpret and process physical pain like we talked about before.
So how do we minimize these physiological symptoms that often draw us back into connecting with our exes?
You need to find a source of dopamine and happiness that has absolutely nothing about them, everything that was special.
But also, why you're mad, why you're angry, why you're miserable.
Talk about how you feel right now, but also why you need to let go.
Consider it almost a final love letter to them.
All of the emotions that you're feeling, put it on the page.
And then I want you to put it away.
And I also don't want you to stop writing until you've really, you're really done.
You really exhausted all the thoughts in your brain and either get rid of that letter or keep it in a box.
Don't send it to them.
Don't tell anyone about it.
Just do it for you.
Say goodbye in your own way.
I also want you to remove anything that reminds you of them from your physical space.
All that's going to do is reactivate those synaptic connections in your brain that make you want them back, that make you long and obsess.
It's really important to recreate or refurbish or clean your personal spaces of chip more than any relationship can teach you.
You know, we've all been there and I know a few of you will roll your eyes when I say this.
I'm sorry but it does get better.
There are people out there who will love you, like I said, more than you ever could anticipate.
And the end of one chapter is the beginning of an even better one, even if it takes a while.
I promise that the growth and the maturity is worth it.
So I'm sending love to you all, all my heartbroken people out there.
I hope that this episode helped you and that you do not get into a new relationship.
I feel like that is the major point that we took away from this episode.
But I really didn't love kind of exploring this.
You know, like I said, I feel like I've just come out of it and I finally kind of felt ready to really do some of the deep diving that I'd wish I'd done earlier and to just kind of talk about it because I know it can be really, really difficult.
So I am sending you love.
I'm back next week for another episode.
This year I've been really rethinking my relationship with alcohol and so I decided to commit to dry January to really kickstart 2025 and just test myself.
Heineken00 is the perfect companion for dry January because you feel like you're still participating when you're out for dinner with friends, out for drinks, whilst you're still meeting your lifestyle goals.
I am a big beer fan so I also love the taste of Heineken00 plus being alcohol -free, you can enjoy whenever refreshment calls.
Heineken00 is available at your local Heineken retailer or for delivery at Heineken .com.
You must be 21 plus to purchase.
Enjoy Heineken responsibly and good luck with dry January.
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