Whether it’s your first time through it or an unfortunate familiarity, there are few more agonising gut punches.
Doubts and insecurities aplenty; wondering where, how and why things changed; and like an agonising Lionesses World Cup run, an overwhelming sense of “what if”.
Being a “science and tech journalist” has given me a fresh perspective on how it can impact us physically.
Where’s that headache come from? What about a sudden lack of energy? And why does eating anything, even a normal favourite, feel like an I’m A Celebrity challenge?
For when pictures of wistful poetry on Instagram just don’t cut it, it turns out science has some answers.
The holy trinity
As neuroscientist Dr Lucy Brown puts it, “we’re all miserable when we’ve been dumped” – and there’s a potent chemical cocktail that helps explain why.
Serotonin is the brain chemical associated with happiness, oxytocin with bonding, and dopamine gets pumped out whenever your mind’s reward system kicks in.
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No surprise then that you feel good when that holy trinity is high and rough when it’s low.
The key chemical is dopamine: the ultimate natural drug.
‘It’s like we’re addicted’
Brown was one of a team of researchers who conducted a study into the impact of heartbreak, scanning the brain activity of 15 young adults who were going through unwanted breakups.
They were shown photos of their ex-partners, and the scans showed parts of the brain that power our sense of motivation and reward – where our dopaminergic neurons live – went into overdrive.
It’s an “overactivity” Brown compares to what you’d see in a cocaine addict trying to wean themselves off.
“It’s like we’re addicted to each other,” she says.
“When we lose someone, we’ve lost a very rewarding part of our lives and sense of self. They’ve provided novelty in your life that now isn’t there, so we need some other rewards.”
And like rewatching goals we may have thought had put the Lionesses’ name on the title, looking back at texts and holiday photos won’t do the trick.
Image: Maybe next time… Pic: AP
A body under threat
Florence Williams had found herself intrigued by the pain her heartbreak caused.
Having seen her 25-year marriage suddenly fall apart, trauma was expected. But feeling physically sick and totally overwhelmed took her by surprise.
“I was of course stunned by the event itself, but then I was really confused and surprised by how different I felt physically going through it,” she says.
“That feeling of being plugged into a faulty electrical socket; this buzzing sense of background anxiety and hypervigilance and an inability to sleep well; the weight loss and general confusion.
“My body felt under threat.”
Williams’s experience and sense of confusion sent her on a global quest for answers documented in her book, Heartbreak: A Personal And Scientific Journey.
She found while everyone’s personal heartbreak is different, the bodily response is much the same: it’s time for that holy trinity of hormones to take a battering.
And it’s not just emotional pain you may struggle with. In Brown’s study, brain areas associated with physical pain were also activated.
She explains rejection triggers a part of the brain called the insular cortex – the same part that responds to distress around pain, like when panic sets in after an already painful bee sting.
When emotional stress causes physical symptoms, like headaches and nausea, its medical term is somatisation.
“If you’ve ever had butterflies when you’ve been nervous, you’ve experienced this,” explains Dr Abishek Rolands.
“The most important thing to remember is even though there is no physical cause, the symptoms are very real – they are not made up or ‘all in the head’.”
During her research, Williams, who has two adult children with her ex-husband, was particularly fascinated by the impact loss can have on our immune system.
“It’s important for our nervous systems that we feel safe,” she says.
“If we have people in our lives triggering cascades of healthy hormones, it’s really protective against illness. Our cells actually listen to our mental state.”
And in 2021, US researchers suggested our immune system takes cues from our nervous system if it’s struggling – effectively making decisions that could make us sick.
Broken heart syndrome
In rare cases, this kind of emotional distress – especially when delivered suddenly – can even lead to the fittingly nicknamed “broken heart syndrome” – or takotsubo cardiomyopathy.
Sindy Jodar, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, says the symptoms – chiefly shortness of breath and chest pain – are consistent with a heart attack.
“Most people have either been under a lot of physical or emotional stress, like losing a loved one,” she says.
“The only explanation we have at the moment is when the body is stressed, it releases a lot of catecholamines (adrenaline), and when lots of that is around in the body it can impact the heart.”
Unlike a heart attack, the condition does not cause blockages in the coronary arteries – but does totally change the shape of the heart’s left ventricle, which pumps oxygenated blood through the body.
It’s this which gives the condition its actual Japanese name, as the shape of the ventricle becomes reminiscent of a trap fishermen use to catch octopus: narrow at the top, larger at the bottom.
The condition only impacts around 5,000 people a year in the UK, and is more common in menopausal women, with most recovering after a few weeks.
Image: The condition’s symptoms are consistent with a heart attack
Giving up the addiction
Just as science can explain why heartbreak, rejection, and loss makes us feel the way we do, it also offers solutions.
Brown says heartbreak should be treated like “having to give up an addiction”, though she admits the “craving is stronger when we’ve lost someone”.
But there are plenty of roads to go down without gorging ice cream while watching La La Land.
Williams stresses the importance of working to activate the parasympathetic part of your nervous system by doing things that make you feel calm. The other part of our autonomic nervous system, sympathetic, is what causes anxiety and hypervigilance.
“Connection to nature is really calming,” she says, likewise to friends and family. “And there’s lots of data showing the more meaning you derive from work, the more purpose you feel, the happier you’ll be.”
Williams says such lessons apply to anyone “going through an emotional life quake”.
“People who end a relationship also face big emotions – guilt, sadness, loneliness,” she adds.
Image: Walks in nature are great for clearing your mind
And as Brown says, there’s novelty – that sense of excitement that needs refreshing in a healthy, sustainable way.
Ice cream makes a compelling dinner once, but you’d probably best hope it wears off.
“A good strategy is beginning things you didn’t do during a relationship, like running or travelling,” says Brown.
“People always remember a heartbreak – it’s very painful. But you do change, and can for the better.”
Around 14 million people could die across the world over the next five years because of cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), researchers have warned.
Children under five are expected to make up around a third (4.5 million) of the mortalities, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal.
Estimates showed that “unless the abrupt funding cuts announced and implemented in the first half of 2025 are reversed, a staggering number of avoidable deaths could occur by 2030”.
“Beyond causing millions of avoidable deaths – particularly among the most vulnerable – these cuts risk reversing decades of progress in health and socioeconomic development in LMICs [low and middle-income countries],” the report said.
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March: ‘We are going to lose children’: Fears over USAID cuts in Kenya
USAID programmes have prevented the deaths of more than 91 million people, around a third of them among children, the study suggests.
The agency’s work has been linked to a 65% fall in deaths from HIV/AIDS, or 25.5 million people.
Eight million deaths from malaria, more than half the total, around 11 million from diarrheal diseases and nearly five million from tuberculosis (TB), have also been prevented.
USAID has been vital in improving global health, “especially in LMICs, particularly African nations,” according to the report.
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Queer HIV activist on Trump and Musk’s USAID cuts
Established in 1961, the agency was tasked with providing humanitarian assistance and helping economic growth in developing countries, especially those deemed strategic to Washington.
But the Trump administration has made little secret of its antipathy towards the agency, which became an early victim of cuts carried out by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – formerly led by Elon Musk – in what the US government said was part of a broader plan to remove wasteful spending.
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What is USAID?
In March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said more than 80% of USAID schemes had been closed following a six-week review, leaving around 1,000 active.
The US is the world’s largest humanitarian aid donor, providing around $61bn (£44bn) in foreign assistance last year, according to government data, or at least 38% of the total, and USAID is the world’s leading donor for humanitarian and development aid, the report said.
Between 2017 and 2020, the agency responded to more than 240 natural disasters and crises worldwide – and in 2016 it sent food assistance to more than 53 million people across 47 countries.
The study assessed all-age and all-cause mortality rates in 133 countries and territories, including all those classified as low and middle-income, supported by USAID from 2001 to 2021.
Thailand’s prime minister has been suspended after a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian politician caused outrage.
An ethics investigation into Paetongtarn Shinawatra is under way and she could end up being dismissed.
The country’s constitutional court took up a petition from 36 senators, who claimed dishonesty and a breach of ethical standards, and voted 7 to 2 to suspend her.
Image: Protesters gathered in Bangkok at the weekend. Pic: Reuters
The prime minister’s call with Cambodia’s former leader, Hun Sen, sparked public protests after she tried to appease him and criticised a Thai army commander – a taboo move in a country where the military is extremely influential.
Ms Shinawatra was trying to defuse mounting tensions at the border – which in May resulted in the death of one Cambodian soldier.
Thousands of conservative, nationalist protesters held a demo in Bangkok on Saturday to urge her to step down.
Her party is clinging on to power after another group withdrew from their alliance a few weeks ago over the phone call. Calls for a no-confidence vote are likely.
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Deputy prime minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit will take over temporarily while the court looks into the case.
The 38-year-old prime minister – Thailand‘s youngest ever leader – has 15 days to respond to the probe. She has apologised and said her approach in the call was a negotiating tactic.
The popularity of her government has slumped recently, with an opinion poll showing an approval rating of 9.2%, down from 30.9% in March.
Ms Shinawatra comes from a wealthy dynasty synonymous with Thai politics.
Her father Thaksin Shinawatra – a former Manchester City owner – and aunt Yingluck Shinawatra served as prime minister before her – in the early to mid 2000s – and their time in office also ended ignominiously amid corruption charges and military coups.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be meeting Donald Trump next Monday, according to US officials.
The visit on 7 July comes after Mr Trump suggested it was possible a ceasefire in Gaza could be reached within a week.
On Sunday, he wrote on social media: “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!”
At least 60 people killed across Gaza on Monday, in what turned out to be some of the heaviest attacks in weeks.
Image: Benjamin Netanyahu, left, with Donald Trump during a previous meeting. Pic: Reuters
According to the Hamas-run health ministry, 56,500 people have been killed in the 20-month war.
The visit by Mr Netanyahu to Washington has not been formally announced and the officials who said it would be going ahead spoke on condition of anonymity.
An Israeli official in Washington also confirmed the meeting next Monday.
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was in constant communication with the Israeli government.
She said Mr Trump viewed ending the war in Gaza and returning remaining hostages held by Hamas as a top priority.
The war in Gaza broke out in retaliation for Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw a further 250 taken hostage.
An eight-week ceasefire was reached in the final days of Joe Biden’s US presidency, but Israel resumed the war in March after trying to get Hamas to accept new terms on next steps.
Talks between Israel and Hamas have stalled over whether the war should end as part of any ceasefire.