When Your Heart Breaks … (Literally). “You can die of a broken heart — it's scientific fact — and my heart has been breaking since that very first day we met. I can feel it now, aching deep behind my rib cage the way it does every time we're together, beating a desperate rhythm: Love me. Love me. Love me. read more
You've heard people talking about having a broken heart. You might wonder if it's an actual thing when people married for a long time die within a few days of each other. Broken heart syndrome is real. It's triggered by very stressful situations, like the death of someone you love. Your doctor may call this stress-induced cardiomyopathy. read more
“Broken heart syndrome is a social condition that shows if your wife or husband dies, your mortality goes up and stays elevated for years. So you can almost ‘catch’ death from your spouse. It’s not a coincidence, it’s an effect,” Felix Elwert, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Healthline. read more