What's the cure for heartache?
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, the topic of love is on everyone's lips. But what happens if love isn't on the cards for you? This health tip explains why heartache hurts so much and how to get over it.
2 minutes reading time08. April 2026
Next week is Valentine's Day. The opinions on the day of love, celebrated on 14 February, vary widely, but one thing is clear: the ubiquitous flowers, chocolates and stuffed toys are hard to avoid. It can be a challenging day for people who are currently unlucky in love.
Why do we experience heartache?
Humans are social beings. Relationships and connections to others are essential for survival. This comes down to evolution, because being excluded from a group in the early stages of human development would mean certain death. And many thousands of years later, most people still move within fixed social networks: families, friendships and romantic relationships with others give us stability. If we are rejected or abandoned by these networks, it can have serious effects on our mental and physical health. Grief, frustration, anger or jealousy - all these emotions can be experienced when a relationship breaks down. This is what we call heartache.
What happens in the body during heartache?
Hormones are what are responsible for the emotional rollercoaster. The breakup completely disrupts your hormonal balance: the concentration of dopamine and serotonin, which are responsible for a person's wellbeing, among other things, decreases quite significantly. You become wearier and experience less joy in life. At the same time, your body releases more cortisol, a hormone that can trigger stress, anxiety and dejection if the levels are too high. This new composition of hormones is overwhelming for your body and can result in a wide range of issues: lack of appetite or its opposite, binge eating, sleep disorders or concentrations problems are a few symptoms that typically occur.
Talk about it; distraction and exercise can help
Talking to friends about the breakup and making space for your personal feelings can help create a bit of order in your emotional chaos. Nevertheless, don't mull over your heartache every single day, and consciously do something good for yourself: think of other things when you go for a walk or do something with friends and notice that, despite everything, you can still have fun. This helps you process your feelings. Exercise is generally a miracle cure for heartache. Placing your body under strain improves circulation in your muscles and brain and causes your body to release endorphins, its own painkillers.
