The Science Of Why We Love Breakup Songs

"There’s just something about breakup songs, whether they make you want to kick a hole through your ex’s door or burst into tears, that just really make us feel all the feels.

But why do breakup songs feel so damn good to listen to – whether we want to wallow in misery or pick ourselves back up off the ground?

Well, the answer could be rooted in science.

Enter Alice Gray, neuroscientist and science presenter. She explains to HuffPost that to get why breakup songs give us an emotional kick, we need to first understand what goes on in the brain when we are in love.

“In romantic love, a part of the brain called the caudate nucleus is activated – this is part of our dopamine reward pathway in our brain. It feels rewarding to be in love and our brain drives us to continue that relationship,” Gray tells us.

“These feel-good pathways are also activated by things like food – which is why love feels addictive. This is also why breakups are so hard, it’s like a withdrawal. Where there was once a steady supply of feel-good, addictive chemicals, it suddenly dries up.”

And it’s not just that sudden loss of feel good that makes breakup sucks, Gray shares – we’ve also got the rejection aspect of a breakup impacting our brains too.

“Humans are social animals, by design we are meant to avoid rejection to prevent exclusion from communities. Our brain has built-in mechanisms to find rejection painful to make us avoid it.”

And there’s the key to why breakup music has the effect it does – it brings us together, even when we’re listening to sad songs on our lonesome, as paradoxical as that sounds.

“Music, including sad music or break up songs, activate the empathy and compassion pathways in our brain, driving a desire to connect with other people,” says Gray.

“Connecting with people, seeking out our friends or establishing new friendships is an important part of getting over a breakup. So, music can help us give us a jump-start into becoming more social again when getting over an ex.”

Yep, music can actually help you get out of that post-breakup slump by making you want to go and see people, who woulda thought?

Not just that, Gray explains, but sad songs can resonate with our feelings during heartbreak, building a sense of compassion, and further activating those empathy brain centres.

“The harmonies between the emotions in the song and our own experiences amplify feeling connected with someone else’s experience. That validation and the empathetic links can stimulate us to start moving through and processing the complex feelings of a breakup,” says Gray."

Read the full article on The Huffington Post