Episode 3: Heart

Darcey Steinke’s engrossing new book explores the subject of pain – what science tells us and what artists and thinkers have made of it. For Steinke, it all started when she damaged her back. As the process of healing began, she began to look outwards, to explore what it is like for others to live with chronic pain. With a new understanding, she reflects on the lives of writers and artists who have found meaning in the experience of pain.

In this third episode, she explores the pain we all feel when a romantic relationship ends:
‘The pain of my most intense heartbreak, nearly forty years ago, can still feel like a sliver of broken glass stuck in my heart. Each time I have experienced heartache, there was physical suffering. On those days that my own heart was sick, I felt something dead inside me. Most of the heartbroken report obsessive thoughts and loss of emotional control. Some people describe this pain as located in their chest or stomach, a dull ache or a piercing feeling, even crushing. Such pain is in no way new…’

Darcey Steinke explores some entertaining historical suggestions for how to cure heartache. She also learns what scientists have now discovered about how the body responds to emotional pain - heartbreak pain is physical, it releases the same chemicals as when we break a bone.

The reader is award-winning actor Elizabeth McGovern, who played the Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey

Adapted and produced by Elizabeth Burke
Executive producer: Sara Davies
Sound design: Jon Calver
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4