Why does our chest hurt when we experience heart break or feelings of affection?

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Why does our chest hurt when we experience heart break or feelings of affection?

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

I am quoting the internet directly,

“Stress-induced cardiomyopathy is a known temporary heart condition that causes sudden chest pain and feels like a heart attack,” Arif says, adding that stress and depression have been linked to heart disease and that sudden emotional stress or bad news has been linked to sudden cardiac death as well.”

Further, “While a heart attack is essentially a plumbing problem, cardiac arrest is an electrical problem. Cardiac arrest happens when the heart’s electrical system malfunctions, causing it to beat rapidly and chaotically — or to stop beating altogether. Without blood circulating to the brain, lungs, and other organs, the person gasps or stops breathing and becomes unresponsive within seconds.”

So basically, one is experiencing a mild cardiac arrest when one is emotionally shaken. It’s just that it does not harm us most of the times. But every so often it may send the electrical circuitry of the heart into a big tizzy, which can be harmful or even fatal.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Not a biologist by any means, but my understanding is the when we form relationships, and particularly romantic relationships, our brains create physical bonds associated with that person (or animal). When loss happens, there is a physical breaking of those bonds in our brain signaling that something is wrong and sets off pain signals. However, because our brain can’t pinpoint what part of the body is injured, it tends to assign the pain to the digestive guts area, because that is an overwhelmingly complicated part of our body, even by its own standards (heck, it even has its own nervous system).

I don’t know that that is a direct answer now that I’ve written it all out. But hopefully that helps some until someone who knows more comes along.