Breakups don’t just wreck us emotionally – they take a physical toll, too. The exhaustion, the nausea, the sudden cravings for carbs and sugar – it’s not just in our heads. Our bodies feel heartbreak in real, tangible ways, yet we’re rarely taught what’s actually happening inside us, let alone how to nourish ourselves through it. So, what exactly is happening under the surface, and how can we fight back?
What is happening to me?
Nutritionist Valentina Cartago has used her career as a nutritionist to work on mental well-being, including heartbreak, with many of her patients, as well as herself.
She cites cortisol as the main culprit for the negative physical toll breakups have on our bodies. She explains: “Cortisol, the stress hormone, is normal and healthy in small doses, but when going through heartbreak, we struggle to get it to return to homeostasis or normality.”
As a result of cortisol spikes, our bodies act out, we become inflamed, and we have higher respiratory rates and blood pressure. Cartago states that this is when “crying, obsessive thinking, and ruminating thoughts come in and because we are all biochemically individual, our symptoms can vary between IBS and skin rashes”.
It’s this surge of stress hormones that throws our body into fight-or-flight, prioritising survival over everything else. As Cartago explains, when cortisol takes over, the body diverts energy away from non-essential functions, like digestion and hormone regulation, leaving us sluggish, unmotivated and with low libidos. It’s a state of crisis, really. And while, as Cartago puts it, “there is no magic wand,” there is still a way through.
How do I fix it?
To mend a broken heart from the inside out, a nutritional, physical and mental plan of action is necessary. The number one rule is to support the adrenal glands, which are the two little pyramids on top of your kidneys that produce cortisol, by taking in things like magnesium, iron, vitamin C, zinc, selenium, and B vitamins. Cartago says to “eat your pasta because you need your pasta, but switch to whole grains to get B vitamins”. By nurturing through nutrition, you can stabilise your energy and focus, as well as diminish the cravings that lead to dehydration, water retention and swelling.
But nutrition isn’t just about fuelling your body; it’s also about calming your mind. Sleep and serotonin are more connected than we realise. Serotonin directly converts into melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep, and they both rely on the amino acid tryptophan as their building block. To boost tryptophan – and, in turn, serotonin and melatonin – you need key vitamins and foods that are rich in tryptophan: think turkey, cheese, and bananas. These small additions help quiet the racing thoughts that keep us up at night.
“The point here is to work on the vagus nerve,” says Cartago, “which connects your gut to your brain like a big highway, branching out to other organs on the way. So, in tandem with nutrition, activate the vagus nerve by vibration: humming, gargling, breath work, and yoga. Do everything you can to just get all of that shit out of your head.”
Healing from heartbreak is not a one-stop job, and unfortunately, our bodies can’t do it alone; hence, this synergistic approach. The willpower needs to be there, too, or else we’ll stay in fight or flight and crash. Move your body, even if you feel horrible. It’s the quickest thing you can do to boost dopamine, another happy hormone. As Cartago says: “You need to try and work on anything you can to get that fight-or-flight under control and soothe the parasympathetic nervous system; nutrition, mindfulness, movement, even when you don’t feel like you can.”
The bottom line is that you need to be patient and focus on the small things: “It’s all about micro wins. If you feel horrible 23 hours a day, but for a moment you are suddenly distracted? Bathe in it. Make the most of it. Slowly, that time span will start to increase. It might not be soon – it’s taken me ages – but it’ll happen.”
Read Eliza Winter’s personal essay here