The Physiology of a Heartbreak

The heart has a chronic public relations problem. Stationed in a cramped bony cubicle, the stout, shapely guy bears the consequences for every questionable decision made by the top-floor management. Besides your gross and fine motor skills, and the built-in storage, you have little to thank your brain for. It cannot decide what to put in your mouth at lunch, but one look at a stranger and it knows, “This is the one! Let us make this person the centre of our universe.” It cannot recollect where you put down your keys ten seconds ago. Yet it will dig up entire graveyards of long-lost memories to torment you all night. It will trust the wrong people; it will make excuses for repeat offenders; it will stay preoccupied with the ones who won’t spare you a thought if you were to drop dead right now. Finally, when reality is shoved right in your face, your brain decides to go blank. It hits a mental block, fogs up, or simply stops working.

Amidst all this chaos, guess who is aflutter, racing, pounding, or beating outside your chest – your heart. When the brain brings on the blues, you never say, “My neural network is strained.” It’s simply, “My heart aches.” The next time Cupid shoots you, try saying, “I have given you my prefrontal cortex!” I hope the other person is not armed, and you have a fast pair of legs. It’s much easier saying, “I’ve lost my heart to you.” Unrequited love, breakups, fickle-minded people who use and discard you repeatedly, never shatter your brain. They just break your heart. Ever wondered why? Maybe because your heart is the oldest unchanged thing about you.

Some beautiful day a racing lub-a-dub over the speakers of a Doppler machine announced your existence to the world. Long before your parents held you in their arms or heard you speak your first words, they had listened to your heart. On some other beautiful day, hopefully in the distant future, a machine will stop detecting that lovely rhythm and you will be no more. Every cell in you as a foetus morphed into something entirely different. Your heart just grew into your heart. It is the most original part of you. For richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, in happiness or in misery, you were born with a partner who could never desert you. If my heart could be personified, I would just wrap my arms around that person and look no further. It is no coincidence that writers and poets from around the world, and since time immemorial, have spoken of love, empathy, and all tender feelings as matters of the heart.

So why does a heart break? I think physiologically the heart is the only part of your body that is built and wired to ‘feel’ your stress and ‘do everything for as long as possible’ to keep you functional. Limiting our purview to relationships here, they can be as stressful – if not more –than any other nerve-wracking aspect of life be it professional, existential, or anticipatory. Cardiologists ask you to reduce your stress levels as if they were dominoes that can be tumbled at will. That exercise involves intervention from your brain, and I tell you the guy is useless. So, who comes to the rescue? Poor old heart. The fellow races until you complain of tachycardia and start popping pills. Poor thing works so hard, it goes out of tune, so you are diagnosed with arrhythmia and get a pacemaker. When it chokes up unable to bear your misery, you go for an angioplasty or a bypass. When all its empathy and tireless labour cannot make you happy, it breaks. Doctors call it a heart attack or heart failure. I believe it is you who fail your heart.

From my point of view, if your heart truly breaks, you will not be around to feel the pain. If it is hurt, aching, or bruised, it can mend. You just have to stop listening to your brain and follow your heart for a while. If it wants you to end something toxic, let go and part ways. If it wants you to reach out after a misunderstanding, silence your ego. If it wants to go places with you, find the time. A heart never breaks because it is weak. It breaks because it cannot stop loving. It does not know how to quit. You might get a few metaphorical ones broken that you handed to the wrong people, but for the heart ticking away in your chest, you will always be the entire world. I urge you to reciprocate a bit of that love. Have a heart for your thumper.

* The opinions expressed in this post are not based on medical facts. They are also not intended to offend any person suffering from any disease or congenital defect.