Anyone who’s ever lived through heartbreak knows that losing the person you love hurts not only mentally and emotionally, but the pain often manifests itself physically too. The churning guts, the aching chest cavity, the red burning eyes from nights spent sobbing . . . ouch. So yes, losing it is like going through heroin withdrawal. We know that. But now researchers have discovered that the initial giddiness of love and/or lust can also act as an analgesic, lessening the effects of physical pain. Researchers at Stanford (whom, btw, come from a rather sadistic tradition) “showed eight women and seven men photographs of their partners while delivering mild doses of pain to their palms with a hot probe.”During the hot-probing, the subjects were attached to an MRI and then quizzed about how much pain they felt. The result:Feelings of love, triggered by a photo of their partner, acted as a powerful painkiller. Brain scans revealed that these feelings caused more activity in parts of the brain that are also triggered by morphine and cocaine. Looking at an image of an attractive friend rather than their partner had only a mild analgesic effect.In order to ascertain that it was the smiling face of their besotted that was killing the pain, the researchers also tested to see if merely distracting them with questions about sports worked as well. It didn’t. It’s also worth noting that the scientists only studied the brains of people who were newly infatuated. Sean Mackey, one of the paper’s authors said, “We wanted subjects who were feeling euphoric, energetic, obsessively thinking about their beloved, craving their presence.” So before you go testing their theory by jamming hot pokers into the palms of your hands, make sure your love has not reached its expiration date or that shit’s gonna hurt.