Following a break from dating at the end of 2021, Adam* was the first person I spoke to upon my return to Hinge. He was kind, handsome and liked Taylor Swift. We immediately hit it off.

But a few months into dating, something shifted. He didn’t seem to care anymore and our communication became strained. A few minutes of waiting for a response on WhatsApp became hours then days, until he simply didn’t respond at all.

I was heartbroken. Our relationship had seemed so promising and, over time, I’d really started to fall for him – only to be ghosted when I asked how his weekend was going. I barely ate and slept for up to 14 hours a day; my waking hours were spent feeling completely hopeless.

Despite this, each morning, I’d wake up, swollen-eyed from crying myself to sleep the previous night, and drag myself to work as a sales associate in a luxury department store. It was the last place I wanted to be but I couldn’t bring myself to call in sick just because I had a broken heart.

Yet heartbreak isn’t something to be trivialised. It represents a great loss and the body responds to it in a similar way to physical pain due to shared neural pathways. Silvia Cordoba, mental health and wellbeing coach at Vitality Health Insurance, explains that each person’s experience of heartbreak is individual. “We may experience issues with our digestive system, our breathing, energy levels, sleep and appetite, to name a few,” she says.

“For some people, it brings about anxiety, which affects us both physically and emotionally. They may feel restless and on edge, have shortness of breath or feel dizzy. It can even affect our heart rate – anxiety can cause a fast or irregular heartbeat.” In extreme cases, the emotional trauma of a breakup can cause broken heart syndrome, which affects the way the heart pumps blood around the body and can be life-threatening.

There’s also evidence to suggest that heartbreak can greatly affect our ability to work. Jade Thomas, psychotherapist and founder of Luxe Psychology Practice, explains: “Because heartbreak can cause changes in your eating and sleeping habits, reduced motivation and heightened anxiety, it makes it more difficult to function in a work environment. It can also impact our ability to focus due to our attention constantly shifting to the breakup or our ex-partner.”

But, while taking time off work to mend a broken heart isn’t commonplace in the UK, the impact of a broken heart does appear to be taken more seriously elsewhere. In Germany, you can take time off work for liebeskummer (meaning ‘love sickness’) and paid heartbreak leave is also offered by companies in Japan, Australia and the Philippines.

Yet there remains a real stigma attached to breakups and our reactions to them. Despite heartbreak being a near-universal experience, we still think of it as embarrassing and petty. 

Cate, 31, struggled at work for two weeks before admitting that she was heartbroken following an abrupt breakup with her partner of two years. She explains that she was completely overwhelmed and found it impossible to concentrate on her workload. 

“I probably spent more time in the disabled toilet crying than I did at my desk,” she jokes. “In hindsight, I was definitely depressed, but I was too embarrassed to tell anybody. I felt like I’d be judged for being that upset over a breakup, that people would think I was pathetic and wallowing in self-pity. So I just kept going until I couldn’t cope anymore.” 

It wasn’t until Cate broke down in tears during a meeting with her manager that they became aware something was wrong. “It was humiliating admitting what was going on but she was actually really lovely about it,” she recalls. “We talked for a while about how it was affecting me at work and agreed that I needed some time off to process everything properly.”

Silvia acknowledges that opening up about heartbreak in the workplace can be really hard. “It can be difficult to open up about heartbreak at the best of times – talking about it can bring up really painful memories – but it can feel particularly uncomfortable to discuss at work, especially with colleagues we might not know very well,” she explains. “Getting vulnerable about our personal life may also make us feel awkward because it can be difficult to gauge what’s appropriate to share in the workplace.”

The stigma and feeling of shame we have about being heartbroken and our resistance to taking leave because of it seems to parallel our attitudes towards mental health. Recent research by Vitality reveals that 62% of people have never taken a day off work for their mental health. The most commonly cited reasons are the fear of being judged and the belief that their employer wouldn’t understand – the exact same reasons we avoid taking time off work over heartbreak.

It’s vital that we start acknowledging our individual mental and emotional needs, particularly during emotionally challenging times like breakups. For some people, work can be a positive distraction from the difficult feelings, memories and changes that come with heartbreak. Others may need time away to emotionally recover from the breakup’s impact. Either way, you shouldn’t feel ashamed or guilty or weak.

For those really struggling, Jade recommends taking things step by step. “Start by ensuring you’re meeting your basic physiological needs: food, water, warmth, rest. If these needs aren’t met, it makes any type of emotional recovery ten times harder,” she says. “Then, you can start nurturing other areas of your life such as friendships, family, work and hobbies.”

Moreover, it’s on employers to be empathetic and as accommodating as possible when dealing with a heartbroken employee. Some might simply want a day off to gather their thoughts or to work from home for a short while. For others, their heartbreak may lead to reactive depression and an extended period of leave. Good employers recognise that their employees are human beings with lives outside work. And organisations with healthy company cultures acknowledge our needs and create an environment where we can speak up about them without fear or shame.

Images: Getty; Stylist