The Science of Breakups and Recovery

What if we told you heartbreak could feel like withdrawal from a powerful drug? Life and health coach Donna Gunn joins us to explore this fascinating concept, uncovering the profound impact of a breakup on both our physiology and emotions. Together, we navigate the emotional labyrinth of lost love, offering insights into how the sudden deficit of dopamine—the neurotransmitter that fuels our motivation and pleasure—can manifest in symptoms like muscle cramps and difficulty eating. Donna shares practical strategies to manage these symptoms with resilience and self-compassion, guiding you through this challenging period with the wisdom borne from years of experience.

Our conversation shifts to the intricacies of human pair bonding, examining how the dissolution of these bonds can disrupt our emotional equilibrium. We delve into the notion of co-regulation, where partners' emotions and even heartbeats synchronize, and the fallout when these connections are abruptly severed. Highlighting the critical role of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin in emotional well-being, we underscore the importance of recognizing and addressing dopamine imbalance as a key step toward recovery. By embracing personal goals and nutritional enhancements, we illuminate a path back to balance and emotional health.

Empowerment through self-love is the cornerstone of healing from heartbreak. We introduce the "How to Hack your Heartbreak" mini-courses, offering guidance on mindset shifts and lifestyle changes essential for recovery. The episode brims with tips on incorporating daily exercise and nutrient-rich foods into your routine, emphasizing the importance of small, sustainable changes in reclaiming control over your life. By sharing personal stories and practical advice, we aim to provide a roadmap for improved well-being, turning heartbreak into an opportunity for profound personal growth.

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Heartbreak
• 5:13 Healing From Heartbreak and Dopamine Deficit"
• 18:43 Exercise and Self-Love for Heartbreak Recovery
• 28:46 Nutrition Tips for Heartbreak Recovery

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Going through a breakup, Struggling with being all up in your feels, Finding it hard to get through the day. Heartbreak sucks and we've all been there. If you're in need of some life hacks on how to regulate your emotions, practically manage your life and how to rediscover yourself post-breakup, you've come to the right place. This is your roadmap to navigating out of this time in your life with intelligence, humour, sass and a little bit of tough love when you need it. Welcome to how To Hack your Heartbreak with your host, Louise Wilkinson.

Speaker 2: 0:45

At some stage during the breakup process. I'm sure that you've asked yourself why does this hurt so much? Why am I missing them so much? Well, studies have shown that when we scan the brain of a heartbroken person, the pain receptors light up in the same way as someone who has a broken leg or similar. You're not imagining it. Breakups are as harsh on the body and on the mind as coming off a hard drug. There are scientific reasons for that and things that you can do to help alleviate the symptoms, even if we can't take away the source of the original heartbreak. Donna Gunn is a life and health coach with a plethora of knowledge on how our brain works during distress, and she's got some fantastic tips on what we can do to support ourselves when we really are feeling like it's the end of the world. Donna, welcome to how to Hack your Heartbreak for the first time. It's definitely not going to be the last, but I'm so glad to have you on the podcast today. Thanks, louise. It's amazing to be here. I feel really honoured.

Speaker 2: 2:04

Now look just to set the scene. You know we've had ground zero. We've emerged from the wreckage, we've gone and got triaged at the hospital. We've dealt with the immediate problem. Obviously that was cortisol and we've got the cortisol levels down from the initial shock. Got the cortisol levels down from the initial shock, and so I have been quite generous and I have let our heartbroken person out of Heartbreak General Hospital and they're trying to get back into life. But look, we've got a little bit of a not good news, let's just say, because we've dealt with cortisol and we know all about cortisol now. But there's another chemical Molotov cocktail that is probably going to hit around now that we want to make everybody aware of Absolutely. So we know.

Speaker 2: 2:59

Well, a lot of people may not know, but neurotransmitters are basically chemicals that go from cell to cell in your body and they make us feel good. You know, we've got serotonin, we've got dopamine. We all know about oxytocin, which is the love chemical, but dopamine is a really, really important one because it's our main one for motivation and for pleasure. So for us to feel good, we really do have to have dopamine. And we also have to have it if we're going to be kicking goals in life. You know, chasing those dreams and things like that. So when we're heartbroken, dopamine is definitely going to be the one that's going to suffer from it and typically what would happen around this time is you'd go into something probably called dopamine deficit.

Speaker 2: 3:46

Around this time is you'd go into something probably called dopamine deficit. So it's quite a nasty um syndrome where you know you've got symptoms like muscle cramps, you've got tremors, you're aching and you've got pain all over your body. You know you've got sometimes a loss of balance, um, and difficulty eating, which is then that that double fold effect of not getting our nutrition, you know, to get all the other chemicals we need. So this dopamine deficit is quite serious and most of my clients, when I first see them, have definitely got this as well, this as well. So I've I've been through a marriage break breakdown and I definitely can hold my hands up and say that dopamine deficit was, was one of the leading causes of why I couldn't get out of bed for a little bit. Yeah, for sure. And look, this is sort of one of the reasons why I started how To Hack your Heartbreak, because I feel like when somebody loses a loved one or, you know, there's some big event in their lives, people can be very compassionate, but with a breakup, I guess we've all run over to the girlfriend's place with the ice cream, and we've watched the notebook and we've given them some tissues and some chocolate and, you know, maybe a bottle of wine, and then two or three weeks later we'll see them and we wonder why they're still so in it.

Speaker 2: 5:13

Yeah, and I think one of the really important things to recognise is that as mammals, we are actually programmed to pair bond. Yeah, yes, we are, yeah. And programmed to pair bond yeah, yes, we are, yeah. And when we pair bond, we actually start co-regulating, even though we don't actually realize it. So heartbeats can be in sync, breathing can be in sync. You know, we co-regulate each other's emotions. So all of a sudden we take all that away in sometimes a split second and completely out of the blue.

Speaker 2: 5:46

We don't even come off it on a nice curve and our body is going to let us know that something is not right, absolutely, and it's, it's the neurotransmitters that let you know everything. You know they are responsible for all of the chemical reaction in your body that affects your mind and body. You know, we know about the mind-body connection and it's the neurotransmitters that basically make that up and the dopamine is the thing that makes us feel, you know, so much pleasure in life. You know, and we are wired to move ourselves away from pain towards pleasure. So when you're not getting enough dopamine, the first thing that is going to happen is we're going to start to reach for the wine we're going to start to reach for, you know, nicotine or caffeine or something to lift us up, to make us feel better, and then in the end of it it doesn't, unfortunately, and it has other reaching effects to our health.

Speaker 2: 6:46

But with the dopamine deficit, you know, there's a reason for it and if you give people a reason, you give people that hope that it's not just them. It's why am I suffering so bad? What's wrong with me? You start to remove that shame and that's when people can start to to get better and to feel better, you know. So it's giving them, arming them with that right information and going.

Speaker 2: 7:12

If you're getting these symptoms, you know, and it's feeling fatigued as well and lacking motivation, which we all know we do feel when we're um, not you know, when we're heart, you know when we're heartbroken, but you know mood swings and things like that. If you start to experience too many of these symptoms, you know something's going on and it's. The best thing is is it is fit. It's fixable. You know we're not stuck in dopamine deficit forever. It's not like a life, it's not like a prison cell that you're in. You can get out of it.

Speaker 2: 7:44

Um, and you know nutrition and movement and things like that. Setting new goals for yourself, setting goals for you, which we often lack doing when we are in a partnership, I think that's really powerful to say is you still do need your own goals and break up. You know you come home from the hospital when you go right, what do I need to do to get moving? We all know goals make us feel really good and when you meet goals, guess what's the chemical that you get? Dopamine, that's right. So it's it's using.

Speaker 2: 8:20

You know, and you can use the smart goal setting principle um, it seems a bit tragic at times, but it's actually amazing because it helps you set realistic and measurable and um, you know goals that you can just chip away at and each time you make that step and each time you reach that little bit of a goal, you are going to get the dopamine. And if you, you know, start looking at your nutrition and there's foods that you can eat that, um, help us produce more dopamine. So these chemicals in our bodies, we have to put them there. We've got the building blocks within, but we have to fuel them. We. We can't not fuel our body and expect it to get better. Yeah, 100%, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:11

So, look, what we also should draw to people's attention is that when we actually go into dopamine deficit, there are studies that show that that lack of dopamine, that dopamine withdrawal, is as full on as a drug addiction withdrawal. Absolutely, it's actually, you know. So, as you say it's, you know we're like, oh my God, I need it back, I need it back, I need it back. Give me the wine, give me the cigarettes, give me the social media.

Speaker 2: 9:36

Yeah, Let me numb out on that you know whatever it is that we can do to put that back in, but it's temporary and it doesn't actually address the problem Absolutely to put that back in, but it's temporary and it doesn't actually address the problem.

Speaker 2: 9:48

So we've talked about like that, more than likely we're going to go into into a dopamine deficit and you know, a significant part of our lives is now missing and, um, the way that we would set up our day is now completely on its head. So obviously, you've talked about some of the symptoms. So we're we're looking at muscle cramps and tremors and aches and pains. I can remember, um, my hips in particular were extremely sore by the end of the day. Um, I was, I was inflamed, I knew it. And um, and difficulty eating. Now, eating is not something that I have had an issue with me. Neither louise Louise Me neither, but I just couldn't. I just couldn't.

Speaker 1: 10:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:27

You know, and so at the time I didn't know what it was which led to all of this research. But all of these things that you're listing, you know, the poor sleep, the inability to focus, the low energy, the difficulty eating, the feeling sad, hopeless, anxious to actually be able to go. Okay, this is your body telling you that your dopamine's dropped out is the first step to actually writing it, absolutely, absolutely, and having a name for it Humans. You know, we think we're complicated, but we're not. We need a few little things, just to, you know, get us through.

Speaker 2: 11:05

But dopamine is 100% one of the most important, apart from serotonin, which we'll talk about later. But dopamine and serotonin are your two major ones that really make us feel good to go out and achieve the things that we want to do and feel healthy enough to do that. But those symptoms, even giving someone a list and saying this is potentially what you're going to be feeling Again, it removes that. Oh, my God, what's happening to me? Oh, there's something wrong with me. You know, like I remember when I first, you know, had a separation, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

Speaker 2: 11:44

You know I hit this wall and I thought, oh my God, I'm going to have a heart attack and it was frightening If I had this list. And you know, I created these documents to help people actually go. Well, no, it's not just me. You remove that shame. You go right, this is what's going on, but this is how you fix it, and this is what you've created is that how-to guide? And it's incredible to give someone that is, you know, to be able to go through something so traumatic as a breakup, um, particularly if it's a long-term one or, you know, it doesn't really even matter, um, how it happened and everything. Heartbreak is still heartbreak. You know, we, we have the right to feel that and if you're given a little little thing to go, hey, I've been there, I see you it's really, really helpful.

Speaker 2: 12:38

And the dopamine deficit is is huge. If we can get on top of that, um, a little fun fact, what will make it a hundred percent worse is sugar. So what do we do traditionally when we break up? We lie at home, we watch, you know, sad movies and we cry and we eat bucket loads of chocolate and we drink heaps of wine, and we do all this stuff. So much sugar is flooding your body and naturally we want to feel that pleasure, and sugar is the main way we will get it, other than if we take recreational drugs. So sugar is more addictive than cocaine. It's also harder to come off. So if you look at the dopamine deficit symptoms that we've discussed, that sounds like a come down, doesn't it? It really does, it is, and sugar is going to make that worse.

Speaker 2: 13:26

It's going to make those symptoms heightened yeah so, if we can and I'm not saying avoid sugar at all. You know, all the time I have a blowout on saturdays, you know, other than that, I don't eat sugar. But you really do have to be incredibly mindful of what you are putting in your body, because the chances are that you're already not eating enough anyway. So every time you put something in your mouth you have to look at what the nutrition content of that food is. You know, stick to your proteins, um, try and keep it low carb if you can, because you're not going to be as active. Yes, yeah, fill up.

Speaker 2: 14:01

You know, hydrate with water, um, those kind of things, you know, keep it really simple. Go back to your, your meat and your vegetables and a little bit of fruit here and there, so that will help your dopamine deficit symptoms get slowly better. So we don't want to fuel it. And that's sugar, yeah, yeah, because those quick fixes, you know, I think we've all heard of a sugar high and if something goes up, it's got to come down so we need to be looking at okay, how can we get it back to a baseline?

Speaker 2: 14:38

not by using something that is just going to immediately pick it up but then drop you just as hard, absolutely. You know it's about making those changes and I take on board what you said about sugar, and I must say that you know I give everybody two days to lie in bed.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Watch the Notebook and eat some ice cream and there's sugar in that.

Speaker 2: 14:57

but give everybody two days to lie in bed, watch the notebook and eat some ice cream.

Speaker 1: 14:59

And there's sugar in that. But it's two days Now we've got to get back on the bike people. This is what this is all about.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Absolutely, and you know you do need. You know that ground zero of where you're not thinking clearly. You're not going to be in the kitchen whipping yourself up you know the most nutritious meal in the world and that's completely understandable. But if you know, at the back end of three or four days of doing that, if you know that this deficit is going to be occurring and you've got some real hard symptoms in front of you, chances are you're going to make better decisions. And that's what you're doing is you're giving people that opportunity to make better decisions along the way. That will help them in the long run and help them get out of what's going on quicker.

Speaker 2: 15:44

Okay, so we know to avoid sugar. What else can we do? Okay, look honestly, the other thing, too is obviously any kind of stimulant that really sort of you know makes. The other thing, too, is obviously any kind of stimulant that really sort of you know makes you feel good straight away, which, god, I sound so boring, but I'm truly not everybody. She's really not. She's a lot of fun.

Speaker 2: 16:08

So you know too much alcohol. So any more than two standard drinks a day, five times a week, is considered a problem. So you can have that. You can absolutely have your two standard glasses of wine. You can absolutely do that, you know but too much coffee it's. We don't want anything that's going to be revving you up, affecting your cortisol levels and making it hard for you to handle the stress. We actually want to bring that down. So the way to produce more dopamine so you avoid getting those quick fixes in sugar and alcohol and things like that, is you know. Get on to bananas. Eggs are another great source as well. Chicken is amazing for every neurotransmitter yeah chicken's good.

Speaker 2: 16:51

Make sure it's free range, organic if possible. Yes, it's expensive, but you don't want to be putting hormone disruptors into your body at this time. You actually want to make sure that you're eating the best chicken beetroot is amazing. Any kind of fish, the omega-3 family. So your salmons, your mackerel, your sardines they are just incredible if you can stomach them. I love sardines, but a lot of people don't. Um, watermelon is a great fruit for you as well. Um, yes, it's full of sugar, but it's naturally occurring and does react differently in your body, and watermelon is just delicious. We all know that, oh, isn't it I know, and watermelon on a hot day.

Speaker 2: 17:31

Oh, I know, I know. And blueberries are a superfood. Get into the blueberries, baby spinach Broccoli as well. I put stems into a smoothie of a morning. Broccoli is a superfood, it's proven. You know. There is so much science behind broccoli. Honestly, it should be on your plate at every meal. Wow, yeah, okay, so I put in my smoothie of a morning. I'll have some broccoli just quickly fried, you know, fried up in some olive oil, for lunch I chuck that into my salads and then we have it steamed overnight as well. Sounds boring, but seriously, it's just all over superfood. Hemp seeds, chia seeds, you know, you can chuck all that into a smoothie of a morning just to really get that dopamine really pumping.

Speaker 2: 18:15

But, in the right way. In the right way, absolutely, and really too. If you do love coffee and I love coffee limit it to one a day. Do not drink it on an empty stomach and try and have a drink of water or something before you get up. You know, once you're up in the morning, just even like a whole glass, and then you can have your coffee, but make sure your smoothie gets in there as well. Yeah, yep, fantastic advice.

Speaker 1: 18:43

Are you wanting a clear roadmap to give you the best chance of recovering from your heartbreak, wondering which supplements will support you best? What mindset hacks will help clear your brain fog? Perhaps you just want some clarity on what went wrong and where to go from here. How to Hack your Heartbreak? Mini-courses hold your hand right through your healing journey, from freshly broken up to reprogramming yourself and building the life you want to glowing up and moving forward. The courses are packed full of worksheets, meditations, accountability tools and nervous system hacks to have you back on your feet, straightening your crown and moving forward with confidence and calm.

Speaker 2: 19:29

Head over to howtohackyourheartbreakcom forward slash courses to get started straight away they're all fantastic nutrition things and I think that people are going to get a lot out of that because they're all readily available and they're things that we can incorporate into our diets fairly easily. We just have to really think about the choices that we're making with this and for people who are listening to this, the title is how to Hack your Heartbreak and it's for people who are really looking for the best way to support themselves through this journey. There's no shortcuts. There's no magic pill that you can take.

Speaker 2: 20:11

It's a shit time. You got to go through it, you got to feel it, to heal it, but there are ways that we can support ourselves in a smart way that are going to get us to the other side of this without looking like we've gone through a war or a hedge backwards or you know, and I have some some challenges in terms of what my body can handle, so I have to be careful about the type of exercise that I do. So it would have been absolutely stupid for me to go and try and smash a gym workout and lift 10 pound weights, cause my body just would have seized up and gone Right. But one of the things that I did was that I carved out time for exercise each day and it sounds like you're like oh, please.

Speaker 1: 20:56

I'm on the lounge.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Like I've just had my effing heart broken, shut up with your exercise and don't make me don't make me exercise yeah, yeah I.

Speaker 1: 21:06

I can totally agree with that all right, so we're gonna, we're gonna try and change your opinion here.

Speaker 2: 21:10

Here we go. Absolutely so. We all know about endorphins, but daily, daily exercise is really non-negotiable and it has to be If you want to not only hack heartbreak but you want to live a really mobile life. And we're talking by the time women hit 40, we're already decreasing our mobility. It's really frightening when you actually step up and go. Once I've turned 35, you know our bone start. Once I've turned 35, you know our bone start, our density starts to go down. Menopause further brings bigger problems as well, but exercise is far reaching. It's one of those power players I have a list of power players and it's daily exercise.

Speaker 2: 21:50

You, even if it's a 30 minute walk, you know walking as slow as you want to begin with, just get out, get some serotonin from the sun, put some music on, put this podcast on cause that would be amazing, um, and really, really, just move your body in any way that you can. There's no excuse for not being able to get out and do that, even 15 minutes. To start with, Just commit to making sure that you move your body every day. Yeah, and with my thing, my excuse was always that because I work in the performing arts space with classes and that sort of thing, that when I wanted to exercise, that didn't work because I was at work, you see, because most exercise classes are sort of your 5, 36, 37, 30 at night, after you finish work, you know, and my excuse was oh, can't do that because it clashes with my work time.

Speaker 2: 22:51

Let me introduce you to a little thing called youtube. So now, um, I get my mat out every morning and I have a plethora of choices, from pilates to yoga to tai chi, uh, to stretching. That I do every morning, yep, yep, and I make it a little thing, a little ritual, like.

Speaker 2: 23:12

I light my candle and I spray myself with some grounding spray and off I go. And I was so you know, exercise averse. I used to go. Oh God, I couldn't be bothered going to the gym. Oh, no, no, no, and I'd make every excuse under the sun. God, I couldn't be bothered going to the gym. Oh, no, no, no, and I'd make every excuse under the sun. But I have to say that it has certainly been one of the anchors of getting me through this, and today I actually reached a weight loss goal when I jumped on the scales this morning. So I'm feeling pretty. I've got my dopamine hit.

Speaker 1: 23:48

I was about to say, because you reached a goal. I did.

Speaker 2: 23:51

And exercising really helps you. When you look in the mirror and you go, oh, wow, look, my arms have changed, yeah. Or look, you know, my thighs are a bit firmer, and things, like you know, all of my clients will tell me, oh, I just want to get, you know, my inner thighs or my arms, that's our hot spot. You know, set my inner thighs or my arms, that's our hotspot. You know, set yourself a goal of going. I'm going to tone my inner thighs Like, like you said, get on YouTube inner thigh tone.

Speaker 2: 24:21

Like, honestly, we have literally no excuse anymore. Everything is at the touch of our fingers. We can find things. One thing I always recommend to my clients when they come to me because they're going through their own heartbreak over whatever it could be just from partners, but um qigong yoga, something like that, where it encompasses tai chi, um normal yoga, and it's it's just, it's regulating the system, it's a really, really good um reducer of cortisol, you know, and just regulating it. So any yoga or form of tai chi is incredible for bringing that down and then, because you've stuck to it, dopamine yeah, so you're bringing cortisol down and you're bringing dopamine up.

Speaker 2: 25:03

So you look at things that are going to give you a twofold effect. Exercise is that, yeah, yeah, it brings down your cortisol. The other thing to mention, too, is no running. You know a lot of people will say, oh, go for a big run, it's a stress reliever. Yes, it is. If you're trying to bring cortisol down at a particular time, running can elevate it. Not always Wow, but it can elevate it. So I, but it can elevate it. So I don't run anymore. I'm 44. I'm the fittest I've ever been in my whole life and I don't run. I do many, many other things, but I don't run anymore because I'm a natural stress head, so I'm not going to go running and bring it up. When we run, our body thinks we're running from something.

Speaker 1: 25:52

From the tiger, from the tiger, from the tiger and we're not.

Speaker 2: 25:54

We're running to, you know, and a lot of people run and it's great for them and that's good, but we've got to remember we're bio individuals, so what worked for someone else is not going to work for us necessarily. If you're heartbroken, my suggestion is a lot of low impact. You know exercises that makes you feel good. Yeah, that's your yogas, pilates as well. You know I'm at a gym, I love it, I love my community. But if that's not what you feel like, if you don't feel like being around other people at that time, which you often don't yeah, just go for a walk, a bit of yoga. You know those low impact really. Um, you know stretching, mobility exercises to keep you moving. Love that, and it's gentle.

Speaker 1: 26:39

It is gentle, yeah because we need to be gentle with us.

Speaker 2: 26:41

We do absolutely, and exercise is a major form of self-love. I know, when I've committed to going to the gym, I go every, every day. Once I've come home, I'm a different person because I've committed to something, I've seen it through, I've worked hard and I know that I'm worth it. And that self-love and that dopamine I drive home going. Oh yeah, like I feel so good and you will get back to that stage or if that's what people want to do, but the same. Just dedicating 5, 10, 15 minutes of your morning first up, like you've been doing, and you can see results already. You know you step on the scale, like what better way to produce dopamine than getting on the scale and seeing a smaller number Absolutely Can attest to that. All right, so what else can we do, um, to uh, try and get out of this dopamine deficit? What, in terms of? Are there any vitamins or supplements or anything like that that you recommend? Absolutely? So, um, I see an amazing naturopath. He's just so good and you know like you can do natural supplementation, and I always try and say that, um, you know like you can do natural supplementation and I always try and say that, um, you know one really good one that I have always recommended to clients and I recommend them to go over and see my naturopath is a supplement called neuro calm and it's from metagenics and it is basically like a little miracle thing of it's got a whole heap of stuff. I think there's some ashwagandha in there, I think there's some passionflower really essential oils, right, and they're called essential oils for a reason, because back when we were tribal, we'd walk around, we'd pick all these particular plants and we would eat them to feel better. Well, we're not getting that anymore, but this NeuroCalm is incredible and I do recommend it to all my clients, particularly anyone who's got a lot of nervous tension, which is what we've got when we're going through a breakup. So that's the best one for that.

Speaker 2: 28:46

But anything like vitamin C and E as well. But you can get that through food as well. So you know just your broccoli, spinach and your brussel sprouts. They're just non-negotiable foods that you need in your plate. Almonds are a good source as well. Um, an avocado, um, you know strawberries.

Speaker 2: 29:03

So there is a great host of things you can do, but if you still don't feel good and you know that your diet is good and be honest with yourself when we do that you definitely go over and see a naturopath. I've got you know a great one over at Essentially Healthy you in Whitebridge. He's amazing. But don't be scared to reach out and say, hey, I'm still not feeling great, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, definitely. And these are sort of the things that we can sort of put in place and that will give us a better indication as well of where we're actually sitting, because if we're, you know, dosing up on sugar, alcohol, tobacco, like all of this stuff, we're going up and down like yogos, yeah, so we're actually not supporting ourselves to get through this.

Speaker 2: 29:52

Absolutely, you're just prolonging it essentially, and that's what I always say. You know, I have definitely been a big drinker through my life and when I look at how long I prolonged certain events, heartbreak being one of them, you know we discussed that off air earlier. That is, you are prolonging the misery, you're prolonging the pain, you're numbing it short term, but you wake up the next day you're hungover and when you drink too much alcohol, it will give you anxiety. So if you previously didn't have anxiety and you're going through a bad heartbreak and you're drinking too much, you're going to wake up the next day and why don't you just pack up some anxiety with that on top, it's just 100% yeah, I saw a really interesting.

Speaker 2: 30:40

It was a TikTok and it was a guy who was saying basically that you know you drink to numb out but then what it actually does to you chemically the next day makes the symptom that you tried to numb out 10 times worse Absolutely. And so you've actually made it worse for yourself Absolutely. And you and you feel hung over. So you feel you'll have brain fog, you won't be able to concentrate, you'll have weak muscles. So you know, like you, everything's harder to do and you're already fatigued.

Speaker 2: 31:11

So you know and I'm not saying never drink again, because I do love a glass of wine, I'm not totally unfun, um, but it is going well. You know what, monday to friday I don't really need to drink, said, don't know, I might have a couple of drinks. Yes, it's, it's being smart and going. I need to feel good and I want to feel better and it's investing in that. It's investing in wanting to feel better, um, and unfortunately we do have to go through a bit of pain to feel better we do yes, these are all such fantastic tips that we can use to support ourselves while we're going through this and not make it worse.

Speaker 2: 31:49

So I think there's a fair bit of gold in what not to do to get yourself out of this dopamine deficit. And look, it's going to last a little while, and it can, particularly if people have had poor nutrition for a long time. So they're going to be already kind of in a dopamine deficit anyway. And then putting the heartbreak on top of that Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 32:13

And then you know, if we put in some heavy alcohol use and a few other bits and pieces, and that's pre-heartbreak it is going to be already there. So this is just going to make it tenfold. But once we're aware of it and once we know, okay, this is where I'm at and this is what I need to do, it's much easier to carve yourself out a path in in that pain. Donna, this has been absolute gold and I really thank you. I know that it wasn't good news to hear that you thought you dealt with your cortisol and that was it, and we've hit you with another curveball. But there has been so much gold in this talk about how we can support ourselves and not make it worse for ourselves. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Uh, and you know, but inadvertently things like you know, the sugar and not eating the right things and and not exercising and that sort of thing. We know now there is so much that is out of our control in a breakup, particularly if it wasn't our choice, and we feel out of control in all of those areas. These are things that we can control and they're small things, but small actions over time add up to big changes Absolutely and we all like to feel in control. It's a rule of the mind. We want control, we need it, so focus on the things you can control and you will get that element of taking back control of your life. I love it.

Speaker 2: 33:42

Dora, this will not be the last time that we have you on the how to Hack your Heartbreak podcast. I thank you so much for joining us today. And if people want to really get into learning about their nutrition, your company's name is Unleash your Warrior. How can people find you? They can find me on Facebook Unleash your Warrior with Donna Gunn. My website is donnagunncomau. Yeah, and I'm also on Instagram, donagun, underscore healthcoach, so you can find me there. Excellent, I encourage you to reach out for Donna. Every time we meet, she blows my mind with her knowledge and her no-nonsense approach.

Speaker 2: 34:24

It's not complicated, but she has all of the knowledge that she has extensively researched and put it into terms that we can all understand in action. So we're very, very lucky to have her contribution on this podcast. Donna, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks, lou, till next time.

Speaker 1: 34:44

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