How to Mend a Broken Heart: Lessons from the World of Neuroscience (Fairlight's How to… Modern Living Series)

'Did you hear Amy has heartbreak?! What bad luck to catch it right at the end of winter.'

When Ziella Bryars was in the midst of heartbreak, a conversation with her neuroscientist best friend changed everything. Frustrated by unhelpful advice from magazines and rom-coms, Ziella began diving deep into the latest scientific research to help her understand the pain of heartbreak and find a route to recovery.

This warm and witty self-help book outlines the impact a relationship break-up has on our brains and bodies, and explores how a science-based approach can help us heal. Ziella passes on what she learned about how a broken heart can affect everything from our sleep to our digestion; how rejection is represented in the brain in the same way as physical pain; how the brain processes loss; and how a break-up can trigger addiction-like withdrawal symptoms – plus tips for counteracting heartbreak and moving on to acceptance.

Ziella is a writer and producer based in London. She founded the annual theatre show Love Bites in 2008 as a way of producing and commissioning new writing and collaborating with other writers. The plays all share the uniting theme of love, leading Ziella to write extensively about relationships. Her plays for Love Bites included ‘Never Kill a Boy on the First Date’, ‘The Pitch, A Little Bit of Magic’, ‘Blind Date’, ‘Good Clean Fun’, ‘The Wedding Date’, ‘Six Weeks and Counting’ and ‘Down In One’, the latter four having also appeared at Southwark Playhouse, The Courtyard Theatre, Waterloo East and The Etcetera. Her monologues ‘True Love’, ‘Sunny Side’, ‘Blind Date’ and ‘A Room on Greek Street’ have been performed at Rich Mix, the Live Theatre Newcastle, The Red Room New York, The White Rabbit Theatre Ensemble Australia, The Horsebridge Centre Whitstable and at the LiT Space in London. Ziella has also written on love and relationships for The Resident and Verities Magazine and is currently working on a comedy novel about dating.