Can Love Really Make You Sick?

While lovesickness isn’t an official diagnosis, love, or lost love, can have physical symptoms.

It may sound like the stuff of fairytales and rom-coms, but love and love loss can leave you feeling mentally and physically unwell. If you’ve ever had your heart broken, lost someone you love, or fallen in love with someone who didn’t feel the same way, you may have experienced lovesickness.

“There is a powerful mind-body connection, and when the mind is distraught, the body often reflects with a somatic response,” says Jenn Kennedy, PhD, a marriage and family therapist and sexologist based in Santa Barbara, California.

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The term “lovesick” can mean different things to different people. Some might think of it as the beginning of a relationship, when feelings of nervousness, excitement, and lust are common. Others may think of it as feelings of sadness and anguish after a relationship comes to an end or a loved one is lost. Since “sickness” is part of the word, it’s generally used to describe the more unpleasant feelings that might come with being in love.

Tracy Ross, LCSW, a couples and family therapist in New York City, says there’s no clinical diagnosis of lovesickness. She notes that there is also a state of limerence, which some may describe as lovesickness. Ross describes limerence as an “intense longing that’s often not reciprocated, and you’re seeing this other person through rose-colored glasses. It’s kind of like the early stages of love, but it probably isn’t going to progress into anything stable.”

She adds that some physical symptoms someone can experience from limerence include:

• Nausea and stomach pain
• Elevated heart rate
• Sweating
• Chest pain or pressure
• Tension in the neck and shoulders
• Racing thoughts

Lovesickness is also associated with grief. Dr. Kennedy says that the closest diagnosis to feelings of heartbreak is grief or depression. You might feel this type of lovesickness after a painful breakup, the death of a loved one, or if your strong feelings of love aren’t reciprocated.

Feelings of lovesickness can be both mental and physical. There’s no clinical definition, but lovesickness usually represents how the body responds to feelings in the mind. “Typically, relationship challenges produce anxiety, depression, powerlessness, and hopelessness, which can cause physical symptoms: no appetite, fatigue, tightness in chest or stomach, headache, and low mood,” says Kennedy.

“Stress makes you sick,” says Lee Phillips, LCSW, EdD, psychotherapist and certified sex and couples therapist in New York City and McLean, Virginia. “Depression makes you sick.” He adds that people don’t always think about how the mind and body are connected. “When we’ve got some mental health issues going on, and we’re dysregulated, our body is going to respond to that,” he says.

A review published in Cardiac Electrophysiology Clinics examined the history of lovesickness and found that it was generally associated with these physical symptoms:

• Fever
• Loss of appetite
• Headache
• Fast breathing
• Heart palpitations

From an evolutionary standpoint, humans developed negative emotional responses to rejection, also described as a “sociometer,” because acceptance in a group improved their survival chances, according to research. This “sociometer” is believed to be mediated by the same parts of the brain that are associated with physical pain, which may help explain why we experience physical symptoms in response to losing love.

Lovesickness can also affect our behavior. One study found that rejection in love can activate parts of the brain associated with cocaine addiction, which “may help explain the obsessive behaviors associated with rejection in love.”

There’s also a phenomenon called broken heart syndrome that can be associated with feelings of lovesickness and loss. Broken heart syndrome, also known as stress-induced cardiomyopathy or takotsubo cardiomyopathy, describes the physical connection between heartbreak and cardiac issues, such as chest pain and abnormal heartbeats. According to the American Heart Association, the most common signs of broken heart syndrome are chest pain and shortness of breath, which typically occur as a reaction to an emotionally stressful event.

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Since lovesickness isn’t an official diagnosis, there’s no official treatment for the mental or physical symptoms. In fact, one review concluded that there’s no known official treatment to soothe lovesickness. It can take time to process complex emotions, but it’s likely you won’t feel bad forever.

If you’re grieving the end of a relationship or the loss of a loved one, “let yourself feel the sadness and anger and pain and rely on your support system to be there for you,” says Ross.

There are things you can do on your own to help yourself feel better mentally and physically. Ross says a good first step is to get your body grounded. She recommends doing this with techniques like mindfulness meditation, breathing exercises, and focusing exercises.

Practicing care and compassion for yourself and how you’re feeling can also help you work through sadness, anger, and disappointment. Kennedy recommends:

• Talking to supportive friends and loved ones
• Writing in a journal
• Exercising
• Reducing drug and alcohol use
• Saying no to invitations or reducing responsibilities as needed

One way Dr. Phillips tells patients to address feeling overwhelmed by lovesickness is to “write down what you need to get done, and focus on one task at a time.”

If you’re having trouble feeling better after trying regulation techniques on your own, Phillips suggests working with a therapist to help regulate your emotions. He recommends dialectical behavioral therapy to help with emotional dysregulation, heightened anxiety, and anger.