Many of us have heard the saying 'No one has ever died from a broken heart', but doctors are now saying differently.
A broken heart isn't just something conjured up by romantic novelists, Hollywood movies and angsty love sick teens, according to an increasing number of cardiologists, a broken heart is a very a real and serious medical complaint.
So can you really die from a broken heart? It's rare, but the answer is yes.
Dr Richard Besser, talks about this relatively recent discovery in his book Tell me the Truth Doctor, "There is actually something called 'Broken Heart Syndrome', the name for sudden heart failure that comes on after extreme emotional trauma, the correct medical term is Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy or Stress Cardiomyopathy first recognized by Japanese doctors in the 1990s who named it after noting a resemblance between a Japanese octopus trap, a Takotsubo, and the shape of the affected heart on an X-ray."
Although it may be easily mistaken for a heart attack, Broken Heart Syndrome is actually a temporary inflammatory heart disease that affects the heart muscle.
Peter Joyce is a fit, healthy, 34 year-old engineer. He and his girlfriend, Heidi, had been together for five years and had plans to buy a house together when they returned from a US summer getaway. But not long after coming home, Heidi upped and left him.
"It was like my world ended," he says. "She said she just didn't want to be with me anymore. I was shattered - I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, I didn't want to go to work or hang out with friends.
"I felt crook all the time, my chest was in knots and then one day at the office I just blacked out."
Joyce was rushed to hospital and after a series of tests he was diagnosed. "Its weird, the doc was asking me all these questions like had I lost someone or been through a traumatic or emotionally stressful experience recently," he says. "I was like 'yeah, my girlfriend left me' and he tells me I have stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome. I kind of laughed... I actually did feel like my heart was busted, my chest would hurt so badly, sometimes my heart would just start beating really fast and felt like it would explode!
"I had no idea how to explain it to my mates, without sounding like a whinger, I am just lucky there wasn't any permanent damage."
Doctors warn, the symptoms of Broken Heart Syndrome include shortness of breath, fatigue and a feeling of lethargy, heart palpitations, fainting attacks and chest pains. During a stressful or emotional time the body can release a set of hormones that affect the heart in unusual ways. The hormones cause the heart to become elongated and the pumping efficiency of the heart muscles is greatly reduced.
Very few of us ever manage to get through life without experiencing a broken heart, whether it's the traumatic and painful breakdown of a relationship or death of a loved one.
However, there are steps we can take to aid the healing of a broken heart.
Joyce is now seeing a therapist to help with the psychological healing. He also has regular check ups with his GP for his heart.
Therapist Dr Judith Allen, suggests taking some time out to deal with the emotional pain too.
"When you care for another person, over time, you blend your energies in the form of hopes, dreams, plans and expectations," she explains. "When the relationship ends, you go through a process of individuation, pulling back and reclaiming yourself and your evolved identity. This can feel for a time like part of you is actually missing. It's normal to experience periods of tearfulness, hopelessness."
Feeling anti-social, losing your appetite and experiencing physical symptoms such as an ache in the pit of your stomach or feeling lonely even in the presence of family or close friends is all very normal Allen says.
"You can't always help having that need to return to the situation that has ended, it's our longing for the familiar that causes those impulses."
But after an initial period of grieving, she says it's important to make a commitment to re-building other connections you may have neglected in the past or through your grieving period. "Make plans with friends, sign up for a class, exercise, get a hobby. The only part of life you can control is what you think and do today, and the plans you make for your future," says Allen.
Joyce says: "A broken heart is very real, I would say to anyone that felt like me, especially guys, go chat to a doctor or a counsellor before you end up like I did or worse."