In this country, when you are literally and figuratively heartbroken, you can ask your employer for a day off. It’s unique in the world.
Heartache is serious. And it can leave traces much deeper than we think, even affecting the body itself. A romantic breakup, whether romantic or marital, can upset a person’s emotional balance and plunge the heart into a real storm. However, in France, no specific provision is made to support employees going through such an emotional shock. Elsewhere, on the other hand, suffering linked to love is recognized as a real health issue.
Each year, there are no less than 435,000 marital separations in France, whether divorces, breakdown of civil partnerships or end of cohabitation. However, the consequences of these breakups are not limited to tears or reduced morale. In some cases, a separation can even cause symptoms comparable to those of a heart attack! This is what we call in a country thousands of kilometers from us “broken heart syndrome”, a real physical distress triggered by intense emotional stress.
This medical phenomenon has a name: “Tako-Tsubo” syndrome. It was discovered in the 1990s in Japan, where it is taken very seriously by the medical community. Concretely, it is a sudden and temporary dilation of the left ventricle of the heart, which swells and takes on an unusual shape, similar to that of an octopus trap. Moreover, “Tako-Tsubo” literally means “octopus trap” in Japanese. This syndrome can occur following a major emotional shock, such as a breakup, bereavement or a particularly stressful event.
In the land of the rising sun, this syndrome can then give rise to leave. A broken heart then becomes a valid reason to stop, to heal yourself, to take the time to heal your wounds. This recognition is slowly starting to spread elsewhere. In the Philippines, an MP recently proposed the introduction of “broken heart leave”, three unpaid days to allow young people to get through a romantic breakup with a minimum of support.
