The Heart Break Tool Box

If you’re in the acute stage of heartbreak, you may feel emotionally flooded and overwhelmed. You may also feel frantic, restless, and struggle to sleep. This is because when we lose access to emotional intimacy and closeness, the body can go into fight or flight, associated with spikes in adrenaline.

Your brain is alert, it is motivated to seek out a replacement for the reward that the relationship gave you, which is now missing. This explains why many of us reach for synthetic highs or substances that numb the pain; alcohol, drugs, overeating, over-shopping, risk-taking, or promiscuity.

Your brain may feel urgent and preoccupied with seeking replacement rewards because heartbreak is like a withdrawal from addiction.

When reading the following vignette try to decipher if it is describing taking cocaine or falling in love

At first, each encounter was accompanied by a rush of euphoria—new experiences, new pleasures, each more exciting than the last. Every detail became associated with those intense feelings: places, times, objects, faces. Other interests suddenly became less important as more time was spent pursuing the next joyful encounter. Gradually, the euphoria during these encounters waned, replaced imperceptibly by feelings of contentment, calm, and happiness. The moments between encounters seemed to grow longer, even as they stayed the same, and separation came to be filled with painful longing and desire. When everything was brought to an abrupt end, desperation and grief followed, leading slowly into depression. (Burkett and Young 2012,)

The parallels are clear.

In order to make it through this difficult period of withdrawal and loss, approach yourself with compassion and arm yourself with a tool kit:

Here's the heart break tool kit:

1. Write a list of all the things you enjoy or have ever enjoyed in your life—things that make you feel good, big and small.
2. Track your distressing thoughts on a scale of one to ten—at what number do they start to feel really uncomfortable?
3. When you are about to reach this uncomfortable number, plan or engage in one of the things on the list from tool number one.
4. Change your environment—making small changes can help with moving on. Change the background image on your phone screen to something happy that isn’t associated with your past relationship.
5. Connect — you have lost connection, comfort, and co-regulation. Find this elsewhere. Take this as an opportunity to reconnect with old friends you may have neglected when you were in a couple.
6. Choose — choose a coping skill that helps you process. Maybe you like to write, draw, listen, or move your body to untangle your thoughts.
7. Communicate — don’t bottle all those feelings up. Share how you feel, share what you need. Ask a friend if they can come over and sit with you, talk with you, take a walk, or take your phone off you.

As you move forward you will build your toolbox and fill it with things you have found helpful, that have distracted you, uplifted you, or helped you to process this transitional moment. You can build up your internal resilience by finding the right tools for you, one tool at a time.

For more on heart break pre-order my memoir, Just About Coping, with Pan Macmillan, Picador.