What happens to your body when you’re heartbroken ?

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2. Once the shock subsides, major emotional stress sets in (What did I do wrong? Am I going to be alone forever? Is it time to start adopting cats?). That stress can ramp up your sympathetic nervous system, which also leads to rising cortisol and inflammation levels. Your sleep, digestion and immunity might also suffer (you’re up all night, have no appetite and seem to be catching a cold every other day).

In very rare cases, that stress might really break your heart, in a manner of speaking. A small study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that emotional distress precipitated serious heart damage in some patients without coronary heart disease, possibly due to an exaggerated response in the sympathetic nervous system.