A broken heart (or heartbreak) is a common metaphor used to describe the intense emotional pain or suffering one feels after losing a loved one, whether through death, divorce, breakup, physical separation, betrayal, or romantic rejection.
Heartbreak is usually associated with losing a family member or spouse, though losing a parent, child, pet, lover or close friend can all "break one's heart", and it is frequently experienced during grief and bereavement. The phrase refers to the physical pain one may feel in the chest as a result of the loss, although it also by extension includes the emotional trauma of loss even where it is not experienced as somatic pain. Although "heartbreak" ordinarily does not imply any physical defect in the heart, there is a condition known as "Takotsubo cardiomyopathy" (broken heart syndrome), where a traumatising incident triggers the brain to distribute chemicals that weaken heart tissue.
Read more about Broken Heart: Philosophical Views, In Classical References, Broken Heart Syndrome, Psychological and Neurological Understanding
Famous quotes containing the words broken and/or heart:
“corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered
crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be- toothless mouth of
sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire
spiderweb,”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.”
—Claude McKay (1889–1948)