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Everyone reading this can understand what I am about to say. When you suffer a heartbreak, be it in the form of death, or the end of a relationship, we decide to harm our bodies through destructive acts. We either stop sleeping, smoke-like chimneys, turn to drugs or even food. Our desire for health and exercise dissolves and our want to absorb more hurt and sadness overshadows logic and reason.
However, to be conscious of this process places you in a strange place, as you know all you are doing is not going to remedy the issue but rather amplify the current pain and pull the covers more overhead. So why do we do it then? Why do we self destruct when we know such behaviour fixes nothing and adversely makes the situation worse?
We first have to understand how loving someone affects the brain to know better how to deal with ourselves by removing opinion and emotion and applying logic and science to the matter at hand.
“A study led by psychologist Art Aron, neurologist Lucy Brown, and anthropologist Helen Fisher, individuals who were deeply in love, viewed images of their beloved and simultaneously had their brains scanned in an FMRI machine, which maps neural activity by measuring changes in blood flow in the brain. The FMRI’s vivid casts of yellows, greens, and blues—fireworks across gray matter—clearly showed that romantic love activates in the caudate nucleus, via a flood of dopamine,” wrote MEGHAN LASLOCKY in an article on Great Good
This means the impact of loving someone is more than just a silly comic book-like feeling. It has a profound neurological effect on your entire world (brain).
You are a product of your mental state, and this is why when you suffer great hurt or loss, you are pulled from your created world into reality while enduring a physical change in your brain.
Jannel Phillips, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist at Henry Ford Health System, says, “Several regions of the brain play a role in emotion, including areas within the limbic system and pre-frontal cortex. These involve emotional regulation, memory, multi-tasking, organization and learning. When you’re grieving, a flood of neurochemicals and hormones dance around in your head. There can be a disruption in hormones that results in specific symptoms, such as disturbed sleep, loss of appetite, fatigue and anxiety.”
Basically, you experience rapid, uncomfortable change and as a result thereof are thrown off your game. Your mental process is clouded or distorted due to these chemical changes which trigger emotional responses. In other words, you are not broken or damaged; you are simply, like every other human, dealing with a common by-product of the brain’s process and response to various scenarios.
So, what is the fix? The answer is straightforward, be intelligent about the process and not a slave to your opinions and emotions. Instead, go on a fact-finding mission to better understand your brain. Unfortunately, we live in an age where the pursuit of knowledge has resulted in the entire human population, with a few exceptions, basing their “education” on views or beliefs, social media posts, or worse, no science but rather opinion.
So, with all this in mind, and a broken heart, how do you get better? Not only feel better but come out of your traumatic event an evolved person?
Moments like what you are currently dealing with are about being still and productive. It is time to educate yourself on the physical changes and chemistry happening from a scientific point of view, reading case studies, and fact-checking. This will empower you with a more profound understanding of the computer running your world, offering a logical outlook on what’s going on in your life.
Secondly, start punching and kicking. The role physical exercise plays on your mental health is well documented and is now on your list of scientific research to learn. Demanding training releases feel-good hormones and helps you burn energy; this supports your brain working more efficiently while injecting happy hormones into your life. But do you lift weights, start running or do CrossFit? You get in a ring or a cage or on a mat and learn to fight. Fighting demands of the mind and the body, for people grieving, this form of activity can significantly help turn your mind around.
Fighting teaches you control and mental management under pressure and is the perfect medicine in my experience. As you progress, you get healthier, fitter and all the while you know, you are learning a primal skill which removes anxiety in many areas—as you become a predator and not prey. You are challenged and have to focus and think quickly while being hit. You can imagine the positives this holds for your chemically imbalanced brain.
Lastly, drop the beliefs and public ego. Do you care about my opinions on Nutella and the harm it causes?
I bet the answers is no, so why do you think anyone cares about your views and beliefs? You are hurting, and your brain is not going to be processing engagements correctly. Therefore, back off of the social pages, choose who you spend time with and start meditating once a day. Meditation is so powerful that it changes your brain, physically. This is a free, no equipment needed gift which will change your life.
It is time to focus on you, on your life. You are the miracle, just think about that statement. If any one of your ancestors had caught smallpox, been shot in a war or never met the correct person and every generation thereafter did not achieve and survive, you would literally not be here reading this article. Understanding that you only have so much time on this planet coupled with the above, will hopefully assist you in what you are currently dealing with.
What are your thoughts? Leave your comment in the section below.
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