Title How to Fix a Broken Heart

Author Guy Winch

Year Published 2018

Kind of Book Relationship/Psychology

How strongly I recommend it 6/10 

My Impressions

Nothing groundbreaking in here, but a comforting read after a heartbreak. Also contains reminders to do the things you probably already know you should do or shouldn't do after a heartbreak eg. No social media stalking, start dating again, etc.

Date Read December 2022

What question is the author trying to answer? How can we recover from a broken heart?

Practical Takeaways

  • Don't overtax your support systems

  • Provide “breaks” for those doing the lion’s share of emotional support.

  • Vary the people you reach out to, to get emotional support

  • unfriend, unfollow, block or delete your access to the person’s social media accounts

  • Unfriend, unfollow, block your ex's family and friends

  • If you don't have a good understanding of why the relationship ended, use the reason that the person who dumped you gave you (or make up the most plausible reason and stick with that.)

  • Don't spend countless hours turning over in your mind possible scenarios for why the relationship ended

  • If multiple outside people says that the explanation the person gave you for the breakup makes sense, listen to them

  • Make a list of your exs negative qualities (to offset your bias to idealize them after the breakup) eg. Your pet peeves, their bad communication skills, things they didn't support about you, things they didn't like,

  • Ask yourself 'If they were so perfect. Why did they leave you?"

  • Revisit places/things that you have a strong association with you ex and form new associations to them (eg. The diner you used to go with with your ex. Go there with your friends and make new memories there to associate with the diner) *it might take a few times to form new associations

  • Slowly get rid of your exs stuff and stuff that reminds you of them //records, shirts etc.

  • Literally Look in the mirror and tell yourself "it’s time to let go."

  • let go of the fantasy that you can undo what went wrong,

  • let go of the part of the person you were when your love still mattered.

  • Replace self-critical thoughts with supportive and compassionate ones.

  • (technique to limit self-critical thoughts) Imagine yourself saying those thoughts aloud to a dear friend who was hurting.

  • Revive your self esteem

  • Focus on your best qualities, everything you have to offer that a potential relationship partner would appreciate.

  • List five good qualities you have to offer a new partner

  • come up with your own explanation for why the breakup occurred—a best guess that fits the facts, considers the personality and past behavior of our ex, takes the context of the breakup and recent history into account, and most important, leaves your pride, dignity, and self-esteem intact.

  • Whenever your attention is drawn to an unrelated thought (e.g., I can’t believe my ex dumped me!) we simply

note the thought nonjudgmentally (e.g., I had a thought about my ex) and bring our awareness back to our present experience.

  • Go out on dates even when your heart isn't fully healed (let the new person know you need to take things slow)

  • Get a new pet even before you are completely over the death of your old one

  •  

Big Ideas

  • Heartbreak hurts at any age

  • Heartbreak impairs our ability to think rationally

  • Heartbreak can be all-consuming

  • Other people are less forgiving of poor performance and less sympathetic after a relationship ends than after a divorce

  • When others stop feeling compassion for us after a heartbreak we often stop feeling compassion for ourselves

  • After getting dumped we often created conspiracy theories and alternate explanations for the breakup than the one our partner gave us

  • When our heart is broken by romantic love or infatuation, our brain responds very similarly to the brains of

addicts going through withdrawal from cocaine or heroin.

  • People often stalk their exs on social media when they are feeling anxious

  • People don't move linearly through the 5 stages of grief after a breakup, rather, they bounce around between them at random

  • People suffering from heartbreak a prone to

1.disturbances in sleep

2.lack of appetite

3.Impulsivity

 

  • Some people stalk their ex on social media to pacify their anxiety when it arises in their current relationship

  • Having clarity on why the relationship ended allows us to move on quicker

  • Our craving for our ex after the breakup causes us to idealize them

  • Idealizing our ex leads to craving them

  • This creates a vicious cycle

  • Avoiding things doesn't lessen your emotional associations with it, it supersizes it

Because

  • If we avoid the thing we have a strong negative reaction to, that strong negative reaction will be triggered any time we see it

But

  • If we engage with the thing we have had a strong negative reaction to (and reassociate positive associations with it), then when we engage with it in the future the negative associations will be dulled

  • It is paradoxical that we idealize the same person who we feel dismissed, rejected, and abandoned us

  • The more painful an experience is, the harder our mind will work to make sure we do not make that “mistake” again.

 

Surprising Facts

  • The exact same areas of the brain became activated when subjects relived their heartbreak as when they

experienced the highest degree of physical pain—the level that was only a couple of notches below “unbearable.”

  • In one study, the mere thought of being without a significant other was enough to temporarily lower

participants’ IQ (their intelligence quotient) and significantly harm their performance on tasks involving logic

and reasoning.

  • Panic attacks cause shallow breathing, tightness in the chest, and an overwhelming sense of doom, which is why so many people who have them end up in the emergency room convinced they’re having a heart attack.

Having our heart broken can actually cause heart failure in rare cases. Known as broken heart syndrome, in some individuals, the stress and emotional pain of a breakup can be so severe as to actually cause cardiac abnormalities such as significant chest pain, spasms, and elevated levels of norepinephrine and epinephrine

  • studies have found that heartbreak is associated with suppressed immune system functioning.