While many of us focus on the heartbreak from a relationship and bouncing back, we may not realize the other impact that a breakup can have on our lives. A breakup can alter our appearance as we know it. There are a number of different scientific factors that can change a variety of different elements of our appearance post-heartbreak. While some people can bounce back from these physical side effects, others will experience them for much longer. If you are going through a breakup now, you may see some of these changes in your appearance. See why they are happening. Then, get out there and hold your head high!
Tears Puff Out Your Eyes—Crying It Out Will Affect Their Look
Naturally, after a breakup, many of us cry. Whether we are sad, angry, or frustrated, tears seem to be the go-to method of our emotions letting themselves out. With that being said, these tears can leave our eyes feeling puffy. According to Bustlenot only do tears make our eyes puffy, but we may also appear to be tired or sick. The drier our eyes get from crying, the more irritated they become.
Many people say that eyes are windows to the soul, but who knew that they could tell that we have been crying long term.
After crying, it is best not to rub eyes, as that will cause further irritation. Dabbing eyes with a tissue is the best way to get tears off of the face. We completely understand crying and letting it all out for a few days. If you do not want people to question you, you may want to invest in some great eye makeup—or suppress the tears to the best of your ability. Drinking water to help replenish the dehydration from the frequent tears could help you, as per Bustle. Get that crying out during the first few days and jump right back on the smiling horse!
14Breakup And Breakout—Your Skin May Suffer
We associate breakups with our heart and how sad we feel emotionally. Many people do not think about how our emotions can impact various different elements of our health. One of the main elements emotions can impact is the skin. According to Elle, there was a study done in 2007 about the correlation between acne and stress. This study reported that people were 23 percent more prone to breakouts when experiencing high amounts of stress. This stress could be related to anything, from work to personal life. One of the notable causes of high stress was—of course—a breakup.
When dealing with a breakup—especially one that is particularly upsetting—our body takes this as a stress trigger. This means that anyone enduring a breakup is more likely to breakout than any of their friends that are happily single or happily in a relationship. Yikes! If anything, take this as a sign that you need to be kind to yourself and your skin during a breakup. We are talking face-masks and spa treatments among other forms of acne prevention. Destressing could also be a key to avoiding any unsightly breakouts. Consider meditation, yoga or anything else that is a healthy release of stress and frustration.
Pulling Out Your Hair—Your Strands May Thin Out
A breakup may make you feel like pulling your hair out. It is stressful and frustrating, and that can be your go-to move. Without even pulling out your hair on your own, you may start to notice that you may have thinning hair after a breakup. Why? We can thank stress for this again, according to Elle. With breakups being so traumatic, they increase our stress levels.
This can cause our hair to fall out and thin out dramatically. There are actually three different types of stress-related hair loss.
This is not a good look for anyone and can even lead to more stress! Some people take such pride in their hair that this is a huge deal.
This is one of the many reasons that some people get makeovers after they endure a serious breakup. Hair may get chopped off or colored. Some people may get layers added to their hair in order to hide some of the hair loss. If the hair loss is incredibly dramatic, you may want to consider consulting with a doctor to make sure an underlying issue is not exacerbating the stress-related hair loss. Lessening your stress should eventually help hormones balance out to stop the hair loss.
Comfort Food May Make You Older—What You Eat Ages You
Almost every breakup movie tells us that the key to overcoming heartbreak is indulging in comfort food. Pizza, macaroni and cheese and ice cream are just a few of the go-to post-breakup foods that many people turn to in order to mend their broken hearts. Food that tastes so good can temporarily numb our pain. Many people are not thinking of some of the long-term effects of eating these foods. How could something that tastes so good cause anything bad?
Eating these comfort and junk food combinations can increase the amount of inflammation in our skin, according to Cosmopolitan. Inflammation—which can cause itchiness or redness—can also have some negative long-term effects. People that indulge a lot will experience this inflammation, which can then lead towards a breakdown of collagen. What does a breakdown of collagen mean? According to Cosmopolitan, collagen is what keeps our skin looking young and fresh. This means we will now be prone to aging skin, fine lines and even increased bouts of acne. While indulging once in a while is good for the soul, it is important to maintain balance in your diet. Foods need to be eaten in moderation and supplemented with enough fruits and vegetables to maintain a healthy diet.
A Moment On The Lips—Comfort Food Cushions Us
Oh no, here is something else that could mean indulging in our favorite comfort foods could be bad. While many of us are reaching for pints of ice cream and boxes of chocolate to control our feelings and better our mood, this could have terrible effects on our long-term health. First of all, it is important to note that stress is a huge part of the junk food cravings, as per Huffington Post. Stress makes foods with a lot of sugar and salt seem extra yummy in the times we need comfort.
Eating these foods actually will not lower stress hormones, it will increase them and make us even more hungry.
As we continue to eat all of these fatty foods that are not filling us in a healthy way, we may notice that our pants start getting tighter. Constantly eating junk food can lead to a change in our figure. Add this to the existing stress that we are living with, and it is likely that we will notice excess fat in our midsection, according to Huffington Post. It is recommended that we eat healthy, even when we want that entire pint of ice cream. Making sure that we feed our body correctly can help decrease the effects of stress on our body.
Your Muscles May Cry—It Can Be Physically Hard To Move
Sometimes, it is not only your eyes that are crying after a breakup. After going through significant heartbreak—like a breakup or divorce—you may notice that your muscles start to cry out a little more when you try to engage in physical activity, according to Daily Mail. Again, we get to thank our good friend stress for this. We also do a lot of sitting or laying down when we are upset as the result of a breakup, which can make our muscles inactive and create difficult situations for us when we want to walk around or hit up the gym again.
According to Daily Mail, breakups can literally be a pain in the neck. We tend to carry a lot of tension there, which can cause soreness and lack of mobility within it. This can also be because you become less focused when you are stressed and are more likely to get into some kind of accident. Keeping yourself moving instead of moping in bed can help keep your muscles warm. Trying to stay alert and being aware of potential dangers can be a key to preventing injury. Exercise produces endorphins that make you happy, as we all learned in Legally Blonde.
You May Care Less About How You Look—Letting Yourself Go
A lot of times when we experience a breakup, we feel like we no longer need to dress to impress anyone. We are so wrapped up in the heartache and the love that we lost that we stop paying attention to ourselves. This is common, according to Mind Body Green. When we feel like we do not need to impress anyone—or like we are not worthy of anyone’s time or affection—we tend to stop caring about the details of our lives that make us look and feel good. We may stop doing our makeup and/or hair, stop getting dressed nicely and may stop caring about our physical fitness.
This can lead us to look like we could care less about what others think about us.
According to Mind Body Green, one of the best ways to combat this is to start accepting that you have had your heart broken. You have to evaluate the entire situation. We recognize the part that is hurting and then we can start putting the bandages on to heal it. It is then important to focus on putting the effort into the parts that we have been lacking lately. Once we start regaining our old routines, we will be able to get back to our normal selves.
You Get Sick—You May Look It, Too
We all know that getting lovesick can happen when you are falling in love all over again for the first time. Then heartbreak hits and suddenly that lovesick feeling is gone, and all you feel is actually sick. Not only do you feel sick from the sadness, but you are actually feeling like you are coming down with something. According to Marie Claire, this is not all in your head. Your immune system gets knocked out right from under you when your heart is broken. This is all because of our silly brains and the signals they send through the body and the systems that run it. Our immune systems take this as a sign to lower their guard, which makes it so we are super prone to illness. It is like adding insult to injury.
According to Marie Claire, we need to take it relatively easy after a breakup. We need to make sure we put ourselves and our health first in order to try to prevent any kind of illness. By working on bettering ourselves, we will start to heal the heartache. This will help us regulate our immune systems and will therefore help us stay healthy while we work on getting back to normal.
You May Feel Too Sick To Eat—Not Always A Good Thing
Some of us dream of our ideal bodies on a daily basis. For many people, this includes weight loss and toning up to maintain a healthy body. What many people do not realize is that heartbreak can cause weight loss, too. According to Boldewhen we undergo the stress related to a breakup, our cortisol levels skyrocket. When the cortisol levels rise up, our anxiety may increase. This increase can make it difficult to eat.
We may feel like we are physically incapable of eating or like food is the very last thing we want to involve ourselves with.
Losing weight in this manner can be dangerous for some people. This form of suppressing your appetite can damage the body’s metabolism in the future and can cause drops in weight that the body cannot sustain, as per Bolde. Our bodies need to be fed in order to help support all of our systems, including our brains. If our brains do not get the nutrients that they need, it will be harder to overcome heartache and the depression that may come along with it. We need to keep eating—as we would regularly—with a balanced diet in order to live our best lives.
Sleepless Nights—Under-Eye Fright
Heartbreak can work in mysterious ways. For some people, all they will want to do is sleep. For other people, they will want to sleep. However, they will be physically incapable of sleeping, as per Bolde. When people experience a sudden breakup and heartbreak, there are a lot of things to think about. Many people tend to let their minds wander more around bedtime. This is when many people will think about the things they could have done differently, the things they wish they would had said and even how much they may miss the other person. According to Bolde, this is enough to cause sleepless nights or nights that do not have a solid sleep.
Nights without sleep can lead to a variety of physical symptoms that we may not think about. For one, we tend to develop bags under our eyes. While many people will joke that the bags under their eyes are designer, these black and blue circles can be hard to disguise—making us appear more zombie-like than usual. According to Bolde, not sleeping well can lead to significant heart issues, including heart disease and high blood pressure. These can lead to further health issues down the line if we do not get our health in check.
Some Women Change It All—Makeovers
After we go through a breakup, we may start to wonder what went wrong. Did we do something they did not like? Were we not good looking enough? Did we not try hard enough? All of these thoughts run through our heads. Sometimes, we may even see that they have already moved on and we want them to remember that we were the prize—that they will be missing out. We see grand makeovers happen in movies and television shows that involve a breakup. It generally involves a haircut, a new wardrobe, and some new makeup.
According to Metro, many people tend to reinvent their look after a breakup. This goes back to science and the study of evolution.
When we feel as though someone surpassed us and took our spot, we then try to improve ourselves to show that we are still in it to win it. We—subconsciously—want to prove that we are the ideal mate for these men or women. According to Metro, women are far more likely to reinvent their look after they have been cheated on as opposed to men. Not only does it come from an evolutionary perspective for most women, but it can also be from a vanity perspective.
Hiding Behind A Screen—Cyber Stalking May Take Over Your Face
After going through a breakup, many of us swear that we will never speak to the person again. Why would we? They deeply hurt us. Naturally, some of us cave and text or call them when we know we should not. Some of us just cannot face them again, but we want to know what they are doing. This means that we often resort to cyberstalking. We will look at their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even LinkedIn profiles in order to see what they are up to, who they are seeing and if they are miserable without us. We often think of this as harmless, even if is causes our hearts to sink or make us cry.
Unfortunately, cyberstalking is much more harmful than we initially thought. First of all, seeing a picture of us happy with them—or even just a picture of them—can trigger a response in our brain that is similar to that of someone with substance dependency issues. It confuses us—according to Oprah—making us think we are still happy with them. Not only will looking at the screen for long periods of time do that, but it will also start to affect our vision negatively, according to Bustle. This means we will not be thinking or seeing clearly.
Turn That Frown Upside Down—No Smiles For The Brokenhearted
After a difficult breakup, it is not uncommon for people to experience depression, according to Elite Daily. Heartbreak is actually a leading cause of depression, which means that all of those people that told you that you were overreacting or that it is not that bad are actually wrong. Depression is a very real and very difficult condition. According to Elite Daily, heartbreak can lead to a depletion of self-esteem, which is more likely to spark depression with someone experiencing a breakup.
When people experience depression, it can be relatively difficult to find a reason to smile. Some people are much better at hiding their depression, which is not necessarily a good thing.
Prolonged frowning can actually worsen depression, as smiling can start to trick the brain into thinking that you are experiencing happiness. Remembering all of the details of your failed relationship can make that nearly impossible, so find something that you enjoy and that makes you happy and do it! Get that smile back on your face. If you are experiencing depression, it is important to seek the help of a medical professional. They can help you get back to your baseline for happiness.
Love Hurts—Pain In The Chest
Many of us will say that our hearts hurt after enduring a breakup. We may compare this feeling to knives in the heart, a heavy heart or even just overall emptiness. Some people speak of this metaphorically. Some people going through a breakup—however—experience actual chest pain, according to Daily Mail. They may even experience real heart attacks as a result of such a significant breakup.
According to Daily Mail, a breakup triggers a feeling of rejection. This feeling can send nerve signals through the body that cause pain. This is what can cause us to feel pain in our chests, particularly when we see a picture of our ex or hear something about them. Some people go the extra mile and have actual heart attacks. Naturally, this is due to increases in stress hormones. This increase in hormones can impact our heartbeat, making it irregular or faster, therefore causing a heart attack. Destressing is key to avoiding this type of pain and the serious side effects that a heart attack can cause. If we let ourselves go after a breakup, our chances of a heart attack actually go up dramatically—as we do not necessarily have a healthy diet or exercise regimen.
Shaking And Pain Can Happen—It Is A Loss
A devastating breakup can cause a variety of physical and emotional symptoms. Many people do not realize that experiencing a real, heartbreaking breakup can cause physical pain. As we described with chest pain, the nerves act like they are in pain because of the effect that rejection can have on the body. This can affect any part of our body and make us feel like we cannot do anything, according to Psychology Today.
In some ways, getting through a breakup is similar to going through withdrawal from a dependence, as reported by Psychology Today. Scientists studied the brain of someone going through a breakup compared to the brain of someone with dependency issues going through withdrawal
Both people likely experience forms of cravings, obsession and a sense of withdrawal due to changed levels of dopamine.
We may experience some shaking and illness after a breakup due to the changes in dopamine levels, much like someone with substance dependency would while detoxing. We have to make sure that we avoid reminding ourselves of our exes, whether that means we stay off social media or go off to a yoga retreat to keep ourselves busy. The less we think about what we are dependent on, the quicker we will get over it.
