You've heard it seven million times now: love is an addiction.

Infamous love anthropologist Helen Fischer explains that being in love is no different than being on a Ziploc bag full of cocaine; a feeling you should be acutely acquainted with if you've ever been dumped. When the source of the pleasure — be it person or powder — goes away, you find yourself not just missing your ex, but craving them.

That's because both involve love and cocaine involve the body's dopamine reward system, a finicky little thing that controls our motivations, desires and cravings. When we're in love or high as all hell, our dopamine skyrockets and our serotonin plummets. During this excitatory phase, your brain is learning that this person or substance is worthy of attention, and it shows you that through — you guessed it — drowning you in dopamine.

But, once you've decided you don't want to pay attention to this person or white powder anymore, ending that dopamine cycle can be tough. You go through actual, physiological withdrawal as your brain struggle to deal with the sudden dopamine deficit that follows a breakup or a cold-turkey quitting of nose candy. This same response by your body's reward systems are responsible for our reactions to love, gambling, PTSD, and drugs.

The only difference among them is duration. "With cocaine, it wears off after a few hours," Fischer explains. "With love, it can last weeks, months, years."

So, how do you get around this?

By thinking about how your brain's dopamine reward system works. It's never going to shut off, so, rather than try to suffer in the dopamine deficit of a breakup and wait for it to re-equilibriate, it's important to find new things that give you life.

"Go out with new people," says Fisher, "novelty drives up the dopamine system."

The key word here is novelty. Anything new perks up you brain's dopamine supply, so whether that means new partners, new experiences or new things you buy off Etsy while sobbing, you're bringing your brain back to life with subtle infusions of the neurohormone it so desperately craves.

Try new foods. Visit new places. Buy new clothes. Do things that surprise you. Slut it up.

Another way to bitch-slap your brain with dopamine? Sorry — you're going to hate us but … exercise. Yep. Man's least favorite thing that's good.

Exercise actually has the godlike ability to build brand new dopamine receptors in your brain. This means that when you're regularly doing sit-ups or that Zumba shit, you'll feel more of the positive effects of dopamine, even if you don't actually have any more of it percolating in your brain than you did pre-exercise. 

Don't neglect your other neurotransmitters while you're jogging with your new dog you bought absorb your excess love, though.

"Go out with old friends and get lots of hugs," suggests Fisher, "It fires up the oxytocin [the bonding hormone released when you orgasm and cuddle], and that will help you sleep better."

Also, cute things. Cute things spike your oxytocin, so don't be afraid to stay home from work and Google "furry baby fuzz kittens." As if that's not what you do at work anyway.

Fisher also warms against overthinking the break-up. "Women begin to re-traumatize themselves, going over and over what happened," she says.

The OCD-like low serotonin levels of love are responsible for this overthinking levels, but you can also boost your serotonin through exercise, eating these foods, massage, sunlight and remembering happy events.

None of this will entirely strangle the pain of a long gone wrong, but if you can learn to see love and heartbreaks as addiction and withdrawal respectfully, you'll hopefully be able to gain a bit of helpful objectivity about your loss that you can ponder while you fuck 32 new people in your you brand new shoes you got when you flew to Vietnam on a whim yesterday. Great!