You Can Die From a Broken Heart — But No, It’s Not Likely at All
How can someone die of a broken heart – Search Videos
The emotional toll of loss and other strong emotions can have life-threatening physical effects. Most of us have experienced some sort of heartbreak before.
Maybe it was the breakup of a relationship that left you feeling lonely, disconnected or rejected. Or the death of a loved one that left your heart wrenched. Even losing a job can leave a void in your life that feels like a gaping hole you may never climb out of.
Any loss in your life can fuel feelings of grief. And grief is a powerful emotion — one that can even make you physically sick.
But can you die from a broken heart?
It’s possible, yes. But is it likely? Not at all.
“Strong emotions like grief, anger, fear and even excitement elicit physical changes in your body,” explains cardiologist Marc Gillinov, MD. “Emotional responses absolutely affect your physical well-being. But the likelihood that you’ll actually die from a broken heart is pretty slim.”
We talked with Dr. Gillinov about how a broken heart can physically affect your health.
When heartbreak physically hurts
When you think about a broken heart, you’re probably thinking more in terms of emotional well-being than your physical heart health. But it turns out there’s a lot of overlap.
That’s because our emotional state has a real impact on our physical state (and vice versa). Let’s take a look at a few ways experiencing heartbreak can — quite literally — hurt your heart, as well as the rest of your body.
The Difference Between Negative Emotions and Negative Feelings
Negative Emotions List – Get Your Free List for Teachers, Counselors, Parents, and Children. No parent is perfect or near perfect. But no matter who is disrespectful to you, it hurts 10 times worse when it is your child.
My mother states there’s no worse feeling in the world than being left alone, feeling forgotten. When we think of negative feelings and emotions, we think of rejection, fear, jealousy, loneliness, anger, sadness, self-criticism, and other forms of mental anguish and pain.
Understandably, feelings and emotions are often commingled as the same thing. However, positive or negative feelings don’t exist without the corresponding emotions, but those emotions can stand alone.
Negative emotions are reactions to negative stimuli. It happens when brain activity affects the way we behave. It also invokes emotional and somatic responses (an involuntary response to stimuli like pulling your hand back after touching a hot iron).
Feelings are learned responses to the things that trigger our emotions. Negative feelings manifest in our thoughts because we are still bothered by the emotion of a dire circumstance from the past. It could have happened to us or others.
Emotions and feelings should never be suppressed. Instead, we must take the steps needed to cope with our emotions and feelings in a healthy way. For example, some people are fearful and anxious about visiting the dentist.
This feeling comes from an underlying negative emotion to something that happened to them in the past while in a dentist’s office or a response because of what someone else experienced at the dentist.
.
Broken heart syndrome (it’s real)
When you experience emotional or traumatic events, your nervous system triggers stress hormones, like adrenaline and epinephrine. That’s normal.
But rarely, and for reasons that aren’t well understood, a person in emotional distress can experience a heart attack-like event. It’s called broken heart syndrome, or more formally, stress cardiomyopathy or takotsubo cardiomyopathy. It can be an emergency situation that requires prompt medical attention.
Here’s what happens.
Following an emotionally charged situation, you get a huge surge of adrenaline — much more than a typical emotional response. The rush of hormones can cause your heart muscle to stop contracting normally, putting you in short-term heart failure.
The symptoms of broken heart syndrome can feel like a heart attack and include:
- Sudden and severe chest pain.
- Shortness of breath.
- Irregular heartbeats.
- Low blood pressure.
- Heart palpitations.
- Fainting.
Even on an EKG (electrocardiogram), broken heart syndrome can look like you’re having a heart attack. But you’re not.
“Broken heart syndrome is probably caused by hormonal factors,” Dr. Gillinov says. “It can imitate a heart attack, but heart attacks are caused by a blood clot in the arteries.”
Most of the time, the heart failure will resolve. But if not, broken heart syndrome could cause death in extremely rare circumstances — as in, less than 1% of cases. So, it’s important to seek emergency medical attention if you’re experiencing heart attack-like symptoms.
Grief is the most common emotional stressor associated with broken heart syndrome (hence the name). But the symptoms can show up within minutes or hours of any highly emotional event. A breakup or the death of a loved one, yes. But also flashes of intense excitement, like winning the lottery. Or after surviving an act of violence, a car crash or a natural disaster.
High blood pressure
Living with heartbreak and grief can be stressful. And as a natural response during times of high stress, your body kicks into fight-or-flight mode (also called a stress response). That causes a cascade of changes in your body.
Your pupils dilate. You tense up or tremble. And, importantly, your heart rate and blood pressure climb.
“Negative emotions, including ones you’d commonly associate with heartbreak or grief, can cause blood pressure to rise, increase vascular reactivity and heighten the risk for blood clots,” Dr. Gillinov states.
A short-lived rise in your blood pressure probably isn’t going to be problematic for most people. But if you already have high blood pressure or if you’re at risk for other heart conditions, the stress of a broken heart could be damaging over time.
Heart attack
A quick rise in blood pressure could potentially lead to a heart attack. That’s particularly true for people who are already at high risk. “Stressful emotions can trigger a heart attack in people who are vulnerable,” Dr. Gillinov emphasizes.
It’s not common, but in some cases, a quick rise in blood pressure may be too much for your heart to handle, especially if you’re living with heart disease or if you have a personal or family history of heart attack.
Heart attacks can be very serious and life-threatening. If you’re showing signs of a heart attack, it’s critical to get immediate medical attention.
Depression
Grieving and heartbreak can feel debilitating. And while it’s perfectly normal to feel “down” for a bit when you’re heartbroken, prolonged periods of sadness can cross over into the realm of depression.
You may think of depression as something that affects your mental state, and it does. But living with depression can also damage your physical health.
“People with depression have an increased likelihood of developing heart disease, and vice versa,” Dr. Gillinov shares. “The link is strong enough that anyone with depression should be screened for heart disease, and heart patients should be evaluated for depression.”
Like dominoes in a line, long-term feelings of heartbreak can lead to depression, which could lead to heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States.
An intimate connection between heart and brain.
Updated February 19, 2024 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer Ph.D.
Key points
- Broken Heart Syndrome is usually the result of severe emotional or physical stress.
- This condition predominantly occurs in post-menopausal women.
- The heart, like the nervous system, possesses the properties of memory and adaptation.
Broken Hearted ~Source: Alexas Fotos / Pixabay
One day this winter, Bill, 76, a retired engineer, hit a patch of ice while walking to the local grocery store, fell, and broke his hip. Three days later, he died. His wife, Margaret, 60, who had been married to Bill for 35 years, was devastated. Her sorrow consumed her and she became gradually more withdrawn and more depressed. Within a few days, Margaret succumbed to the emotional torment and died in hospital of what her cardiologist called the Broken Heart Syndrome.
The broken heart syndrome, also called takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TTC) or stress-induced cardiomyopathy, was first described in 1990 in Japan. The condition is usually the result of severe emotional or physical stress, such as a sudden illness, the loss of a loved one, a serious accident, or a natural disaster, such as an earthquake. Symptoms may include severe chest pain, cold sweats, lightheadedness, marked fatigue, and shortness of breath resembling a heart attack. Research suggests that up to 5% of women suspected of having a heart attack actually have this disorder.
TTC predominantly occurs in post-menopausal women. People who have (or had) anxiety or depression are at a higher risk of developing TTC. Most people who have broken heart syndrome quickly recover and don’t have long-lasting effects. But sometimes the condition occurs again. Rarely, broken heart syndrome can cause death.
The incidence and prevalence of TTC seem on the increase. This may be due to a more sensitive clinical screening of patients as well as the effects of SARS‐CoV‐2 exposure, and lately, the COVID‐19 pandemic.
In terms of etiology, cardiologists hypothesize that a sudden surge of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisone shock the heart, triggering changes in heart muscle cells or coronary blood vessels (or both) that prevent the left ventricle from contracting effectively.
I don’t believe that an outpouring of stress hormones is an adequate or sufficient explanation for broken heart syndrome. When we look at such common expressions as, “He died of a broken heart,” “Follow your heart,” “She had a change of heart,” “His heart was not in it,” etc. And it becomes very clear that in people’s collective imagination, the heart is not only a machine that pumps blood but also the seat of emotions (aching heart, change of heart), thought and reason (his heart is in the right place) and personality (bleeding heart, faint heart).
Nobody says, “Follow your liver” or “Absence makes the kidneys grow fonder.” Only a comedian would say, “The pancreas has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.” (I am referring here to Pascal’s famous saying, “The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.”) And no doctor has ever claimed that their patient died of a broken brain. These expressions and metaphors reflect centuries of folk wisdom and are surprisingly closer to recent discoveries in cardiac function than science previously assumed.
Interestingly, in Japan, takotsubo cardiomyopathy is more prevalent among men. Obviously, psycho-social factors play a prominent role in the origins of this condition, and so does the brain–heart axis. For example, researchers in Japan measured cerebral blood flow (CBF) in patients with TSS in the acute and chronic phases. In all patients, CBF was significantly increased in the hippocampus, brain stem, and basal ganglia and significantly decreased in the prefrontal cortex in the acute phase. These changes subsided with full recovery.
Researchers identify brain’s role in broken heart syndrome — Harvard Gazette
Doctors warn of Broken Heart Syndrome and its triggers
This condition can be triggered by intense emotional or physical stress, and it highlights the complex interplay between the heart and the brain during stressful situations. Harvard University+3
New research by J. A. Armour of Hôpital du Sacré Coeur de Montréal has found that the human heart contains an intrinsic nervous system that exhibits both short and long-term memory functions. This intrinsic nervous system of the heart consists of approximately 40,000 neurons called sensory neurites which relay information to the brain.
Supporting these findings are studies from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Texas, in which the researchers demonstrated that changes induced in cardiac activation rhythms persist long after the trigger that induced those changes is removed. Response to the same stimulus later on is much greater than the earlier response. The scientists concluded that the heart, like the nervous system, possesses the properties of memory and adaptation.
These studies and others like them prove the existence of the intimate connection between the heart and the brain, both of them containing vast amounts of memories and emotions working as a feedback system, complementing each other and constituting the better part of our mind.
I suggest that there are many benefits to be gained by viewing the heart as the center of the human personality, of one’s emotional connection to oneself and to others. It’s the compass that guides us through life, shaping our inner landscape and leading us toward spiritual growth and transformation. Small daily efforts to grapple with the sometimes tough reality of feelings might make it easier to accept a big shift when it comes.
Final thoughts
Our mental and physical selves are intricately linked. And living with heartbreak, grief and sadness can be physically damaging to your body. It’s rarely life-threatening but potentially harmful, particularly in the long run.
If you’re experiencing sudden signs of a heart attack, get emergency medical attention. For longer-lasting feelings of heartache or grief, consider talking with a mental health professional. They can help you learn to live with a new normal and improve your overall well-being.
16 Bald Eagle Facts That Every American Should Know