If the prospect of going no contact after a breakup sounds daunting, you’re not alone. Humans are wired to bond and to connect. And disconnection, especially when it’s disconnection from a primary relationship can be incredibly painful and disorienting.

In ancient hunter gatherer societies, to be expelled from the tribe meant certain death. Humans are pack animals. We need one another to survive. Today, we don’t have tribes, but we often have close relationships, and for far too many of us, our relationships constitute our primary bonds. It’s no wonder then, that a breakup can bring up feelings of deep insecurity, lack of safety, and even existential dread. A breakup involves the dissolution of our tribe of two.

If you’re wondering how long you should go no contact after a breakup, and are doubting your ability to maintain no contact, you’re not alone. No contact is hard to do. It runs contrary to our evolution, our biology, and our innate drive to connect. And yet, successfully going no contact after a breakup can help us heal from the breakup and give us the space we need to move forward.

What is No Contact After a Breakup?

When we go no contact, we disconnect entirely from a former partner by taking some time away from them. This means we don’t see them, don’t call them, don’t answer the phone, don’t respond to text messages, and we block them on our social media feeds. This process isn’t meant to be cruel. If your relationship is truly over, going no contact can be a compassionate decision that two people make to give themselves time and space to heal from the relationship. Even if you still hope to be friends with your ex, it’s still a good idea to go no contact for a while. This gives you both time to establish your lives outside your relationship, creating a stronger foundation for friendship—if that’s something you decide you ultimately want after taking some time away.

When you make space after a breakup by going no contact, you give yourself and your former partner the gift of time—time for clarity, time for healing, and time for growth. Sometimes two people, after a period of no contact get back together with one another. They realize they value the relationship, can work through the blocks that made the relationship unworkable or return with a commitment to work through those issues together. Other times two people decide that it’s better to not even remain friends.

In the initial days and weeks after a breakup, your brain gets flooded with chemicals that will drive you to seek and connect with your former partner. It doesn’t matter if your relationship was good or bad. In the early days after a breakup, you’re going through a kind of withdrawal. According to Helen Fisher and other researchers writing in the journal, Frontiers in Psychology, “feelings of intense romantic love engage regions of the brain’s ‘reward system,’ specifically dopamine-rich regions, including the ventral tegmental area, also activated during drug and / or behavioral addiction.” While researchers don’t go as far as to call love an “addiction” in the traditional sense, there is a sense in which the same strategies that help individuals heal from addictions can be employed to help us heal from heartbreak.

One of the ways people heal from their addictions is through abstinence. Going no contact after a breakup involves committing to physical, social, and emotional abstinence from your ex by taking some time apart.

Yet, how long should you go no contact after a breakup for your period of abstinence from your ex to be effective?

Recent scientific research indicates that the period of no contact after a breakup can range anywhere from three months to four years, and if you were in a toxic relationship or abusive relationship, most professionals will suggest that you go no contact indefinitely.

Let’s start by looking at what the research says. In this article we’ll explore the following topics:

• The Case for Longer No Contact

• The Case for Three Months No Contact

• The Case for One Month No Contact

• The Case for Permanent No Contact

• Why Support is So Important

The Case for Longer No Contact

Recent research published by Y. Chong and Chris Fraley in the journal, Social Psychological and Personality Sciences indicates that, on average, it takes people 4 years to fully break their attachment bonds with an ex. The 328 adults who were surveyed in the study had been with their partners for about 5 years, and, at the time of the study, they had been broken up with their exes for about the same amount of time they had been together.

The researchers asked the participants how often they turned to their former partners for physical or emotional support, for comfort, and for a sense of security. The study found that it took on average 4 years before individuals stopped turning to their former partners for emotional support, to seek comfort, and to gain a sense of security.

Yet, there were some factors that could speed up the recovery time. Individuals who maintained ongoing contact with an ex were more likely to report continued attachment. According to the British Psychological Society, “the thing that made the most consistent difference to fading attachment, however, was ongoing contact: people who regularly interacted with their ex, whether online or in person, were far less likely to sever emotional ties.”

Other factors, like attachment style, could also impact recovery time. But this data only further reinforces the idea that going no contact for a longer period is better.

Avoidantly attached individuals were able to detach more quickly (likely because they were able to maintain no contact after a breakup), while more anxiously attached individuals took longer to get over their ex (largely because anxiously attached individuals were more likely to turn to their ex for comfort). Here we see direct evidence for how going no contact after a breakup can speed up your recovery. By choosing to behave more like someone who is avoidantly attached, we can speed up our healing process, regardless of our attachment style.

Interestingly, individuals who shared children with an ex and who were co-parenting were able to get over their exes faster than those who didn’t share children or co-parent with their ex. The researchers found that while co-parents might have been more attached earlier, the attachment faded more quickly (possibly because of ongoing resentment from co-parenting difficulties). So, if you think you can’t get over your ex or practice no contact because you share children together, here's one piece of evidence to suggest otherwise. Co-parenting might help you heal faster. And there are strategies that you can use to go “low contact” or minimal contact to help you navigate co-parenting.

We explore the idea of going low contact when you co-parent with an ex in our online breakup coaching program.

So, what’s the key takeaway?

While there isn’t a specific period you should go no contact, ideally, you should stay no contact with your ex until you have had some time to establish other bonds with people or communities you can turn to for physical or emotional support, for comfort, and for a sense of security

The question you should then be asking yourself then is not “how long should I go no contact after a breakup,” but rather, these questions:

1. Do you have someone you can reliably turn to for physical or emotional support instead of your ex?

2. Do you have someone you can reliably turn to for comfort when you’re feeling sad or down?

3. Do you have someone reliable in your life who you can turn to when you’re feeling self-doubt, lonely, or alone?

Until you’ve established reliable bonds with other people, you’ll be more likely to turn to your ex to seek comfort rather than creating bonds with new people and communities. This isn’t about starting a new relationship right away—it’s about building a strong community of social support so that if you do start talking to your ex again, you aren’t relying on them to meet your needs.

If you’re struggling with rebuilding after a breakup, you’re not alone.

Our Online Breakup Coaching program offers practical tools and strategies you can use to calm your nervous system and tap into your internal resources for support. Try it for free today with a 7-day trial.

The Case for Three Months of No Contact

Other studies indicate that most people can get over a breakup in about three months. Researchers writing in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology studied college students who had recently gone through a breakup. The researchers found that most students felt better about their breakups in about three months. Even students who thought that healing would take years because they reported being deeply in love, or weren’t the ones initiating the breakup, felt much better than they had predicted they would within about three months of going through a breakup.

Yet, the study has its limitations because the research group involved college students. College students are more likely to have deeper social connections and community connections than other groups, are more likely to live in communal settings rather than live alone after a breakup, and the duration of their relationships are more likely to be shorter than 4 years. These factors can impact healing time. Social connection and support can significantly improve healing time after a breakup.

So, if you weren’t in a relationship for a long time or if the relationship wasn’t your primary attachment bond, or if you have deep social connections with friends and community, you might be able to go no contact after a breakup for three months and find that you feel much better in a shorter period. And if you are a college student, the research indicates that three months of no contact should be sufficient.

The Case for One Month of No Contact

Anna Lembke, in her book Dopamine Nation, writes that most people who have addictions leave a dopamine deficit state after about 4 weeks. She explains that “at about two weeks, patients are usually still experiencing withdrawal. They are still in a dopamine deficit state.” Yet, everyone is different. Lembke notes that she’s observed patients who have been able to reset their reward pathways in two weeks and others who needed far longer than four weeks to re-set. She also noted that “younger people recalibrate faster than older people.”

Because a breakup will put you in a dopamine deficit state, Lembke’s research suggests that the minimum time you should go no contact after a breakup is one month.

Lembke also adds that approximately 20% of people won’t feel better after a four-week dopamine fast. She notes that in this case, there might be other issues driving the underlying feelings, and it might be wise to seek additional support from a licensed mental health professional. So, while you might not be totally over your ex after 4 weeks of no contact, you should be feeling better. And the goal of no contact after a breakup, after all, is to feel better.

The key takeaway is this: if you want to give yourself time to heal, you’ll want to commit to going no contact for at least a full month.

Most people can’t heal from addictions without support, and the same is true for breakups. If you’ve been trying to go no contact, but have been struggling to stay no contact, you’re not alone.

You need support.

Our online Breakup Coaching program can provide you with the support you need to get out, stay out, and move on.

The Case for Permanent No Contact

If you’re leaving an abusive relationship or toxic relationship, you probably want to commit to going no contact with your ex permanently. Individuals who have narcissistic tendencies might try to hoover you back into the relationship, or you might open yourself to ongoing abuse if you remain in contact with an abusive or toxic ex. By creating space between yourself and the toxic or abusive relationship, you not only give yourself space to heal, but you also give yourself the space and opportunity to fill your life with healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, it can take a person experiencing domestic violence up to seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship. While we understand that not everyone has the privilege of being able to go no contact in all situations, if you can go no contact, and if it is safe to do so, it might be a good idea. The fewer opportunities you give your former partner to get you sucked back into the relationship, the more likely you’ll be to succeed and not go back.

Staying no contact after a breakup with a toxic partner can be especially difficult, especially if you and your partner had a cycle of rupture and repair or were in an off-again on-again relationship. It’s important to get support. Licensed therapists and mental health professionals can help you navigate the strong feelings that can arise if you find yourself drawn to re-engage in a toxic relationship.

Self Love Breakup Coach’s online Breakup Coaching program, while no replacement for licensed mental health support, delves deeply into why it’s so hard to break free from these toxic dynamics, and what you can do. If you’re interested in learning more about systems of coercive control in relationships, bounded choice in toxic relationships, and how to break these patterns in future relationships, consider joining our Online Breakup Coaching program.

Why Support is So Important

Because a breakup can activate the same brain regions triggered in addiction, it’s important to seek support while attempting to go no contact after a breakup. People recovering from addictions seek social support to help them get through the initial withdrawal phase. Yet, when we are going through the initial withdrawal phase after a breakup, we seldom seek out similar support.

But what if you used the same tools to help people quit addictions to quit your toxic or unsatisfying relationship? This is why I developed Self Love Breakup Coach’s online Breakup Coaching program. With over 100 modules of support, drawn from research-backed recovery tools, our online breakup coaching program offers additional support during the initial withdrawal phase of a breakup. Learn how to regulate your nervous system, gain tools and strategies to fight urges to reach out or scroll on your ex’s social media feed, learn more about dynamics at play in toxic and bad relationships, and gain the skills you need to break the cycle—for good. When you join our breakup coaching program today, you also get instant access to our Intentional Dating course. Break the cycle of toxic relationships, situationships, unavailable people, and unsatisfying relationships for good.

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The same brain regions that get activated in withdrawal from drugs and alcohol are activated when we go through a breakup or romantic rejection. While some people are able to power through powerful urges, others struggle with repeated relapse. In the context of a breakup, the relapses can look like texting your ex late at night, sleeping with your ex and then regretting it later, or failing to pursue new dating opportunities or life opportunities in the hopes of reconcilation.

Drugs and alcohol in excess can result in missed opportunities and self harm. But these are not the only addictions that can cause harm. Breakups and withdrawal from romantic love can also have a negative affect on a person’s life. When we go through a tough breakup, we might isolate from friends or family, might struggle to get work done, might make poor life choices, and might fail to take proactive steps to heal.

On-again-off-again relationships not only result in lost time and opportunities, but can also lengthen our recovery period post breakup. You might know intellectually that talking to your ex isn’t helpful, but when he calls, you can’t bring yourself to let it ring.

There’s science to back up this phenomenon.

Researchers Helen Fisher and Lucy Brown published a study in the Journal of Neurophysiology that explores the addictive nature of romantic love and offers some evidence that romantic withdrawal can be just as powerful as drug withdrawal. Fisher and Brown performed brain imaging studies of college students who had recently gone through a breakup. When the study participants looked at a photo of their former partner, the same parts of the brain associated with craving in cocaine addiction were activated. This part of the brain region known as the nucelus accumbens and the oribitofrontal and prefrontal cortex are in charge of the brain's dopamine reward system and are connected to craving and addiction.

The researchers hypothesized that the process of going through romantic rejection or a breakup was similar to going through addictive withdrawal. In the aftermath of a breakup, a powerful survival system gets activated--it's not something you can just ignore.

This is why telling yourself to go no contact after a breakup isn't enough.

Telling someone to go no contact after a breakup is pretty much like telling someone in withdrawal to stop drinking, or using.

While it is possible to successfully override the brain systems that will drive us to reach out to our ex, there’s a big mental load involved in resistance. For some of us, the urge to reach out will sometimes overpower even the strongest commitment to go no contact.

People who succeed in quitting their addictions often get support.

And yet, short of seeking expensive therapy and counseling (which sometimes doesn't help), we don't offer much real research-backed support for people going through breakups. All the internet articles and videos telling you that you have to "just do it" when it comes to going no contact after a breakup aren't going to help at one a.m. when the urge to text hits you, or when he calls you on Sunday morning.

Given that breakup and romantic rejection are so similar to addictive withdrawal, why aren't we approaching our breakups like we approach addiction recovery?

A breakup can be one of the most painful things we go through in life, and yet we have so few tools to help us cope. We're just told to go no contact after our breakup and to distract ourselves by focusing on hobbies and friendships, but for so many of us, this just doesn't work.

If you've told yourself that you're going to go no contact after your breakup, but then struggled to follow through, you're not alone.

But given the difficulty of going no contact, what does work?

By using the same tools individuals with substance dependencies use to fight their addictions, we might be able to be more successful in staying no contact and surviving the difficult withdrawal period post-breakup.

SMART Recovery (Self Management and Recovery Training) offers some powerful tools that can help individuals “with substance dependencies and problem behaviors.” If we start to approach contacting our ex like a problem behavior we want to quit, we can start to use the same powerful tools that help individuals with substance dependencies manage cravings, triggers, and urges to help us manage the desire to text our ex and help us pause before reaching out to our ex after a bad date or stressful life event.

SMART Recovery uses four key tools to help individuals break the habits and dependencies holding them back. These tools include:

1. Building Motivation: Getting clear about why you’re quitting a particular behavior. In the context of a breakup, this would involve getting very clear about why the relationship ended.

2. Manage Urges and Triggers. Keeping a log of situations, people, places, and things that make you want to use or in the case of a breakup, text your ex or get back together.

3. Manage thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Our feelings don’t have to govern our thoughts or our behaviors. In the context of a breakup, this means labelling our feelings when they arise, and getting mindful about the thoughts we think and the things we do when we feel a certain way.

4. Balance. Ultimately, the goal is to live a happy, balanced life, that involves healthy choices aligned with values and goals.

Let’s look briefly at how the tools of SMART Recovery can be applied to helping someone who is struggling to stay no contact with their ex.

With SMART Recovery, the first step is to “build and maintain motivation.” For individuals with substance dependencies this might look like reflecting on the costs and benefits of using a substance of choice and reflecting on one’s larger values and goals. Often, substances offer short-term rewards with deep long-term costs. Similarly, a person who has recently broken up with their ex might perform a cost benefit analysis of the relationship as whole, reflecting on the reasons why the relationship didn’t work out (for example, disrespect, infidelity, lack of alignment of long-term goals, not feeling like a priority, or drifting apart). Then, a person who has recently gone through a breakup can contextualize the urge to text, reach out, or get back together with an ex as offering short-term relief from the withdrawal of the breakup, with high long-term costs (finding a relationship characterized by mutual respet or trust; finding a partner who wants a serious relationship, marriage, or a family).

Next, the SMART program offers practical tools from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy to help individuals cope with triggers and urges. If we see a breakup as involving a withdrawal period, there will be a period of time where we might have urges to contact or get back together with our ex, or we might have to be extra careful around triggers (a bad date, a certain cologne, or certain places). Individuals with substance dependencies are encouraged to keep a log of when they are tempted to use, and to note down what they were doing, where they were, and who they were with. This way, they are better able to identify triggers and urges. They are also encouraged to avoid people, places, and things that might lead them to use.

Individuls getting over an ex can do the same thing. What are you doing, where are you, and who are you with when you feel the urge to text or get back together with your ex? Certain things might also be triggering for a while—like a bad date, stress at work, finding a photo from happier times in your desk drawer, big anniversaries, and even certain locations where you spent time together. Being aware of these triggers, and taking steps to avoid the ones you can control, can help you be more successful in staying no contact, and speed up the breakup recovery process.

SMART Recovery also teaches individuals how to manage their thoughts, their feelings, and their behaviors. Feelings arise and cannot be stopped, but the thoughts we have about our feelings and the actions we take when we feel a certain way can be controlled. If you feel lonely and sad, you can tell yourself that you’re going to be alone forever if you don’t reach out to your ex because they are the only person on this planet who will ever love you, or you can tell yourself that feeling lonely and sad is a normal part of the breakup recovery process and that with time, the feelings will subside, and you’ll eventually find someone who truly meets your needs.

Finally, SMART recovery helps individuals contextualize their goals and values with practical tools to help them live healthy balanced lives. Simple things like getting enough sleep, eating healthy food, exercising daily, and connecting with other people socially can make a big difference in the breakup recovery process. Yet, for a person getting over a breakup, balance after a breakup often looks like breaking old dating patterns.

Healing from a breakup is just the beginning. Many individuals find that they do the work. They go no contact. But then, when they start dating again, they find themselves in the same kind of relationship with someone new. Different body, same relationship.

Breaking these patterns requires deeper work.

If you find yourself dating the same unavailable people, or with partners who don’t match your deeper values or goals, you’re not alone.

The Conscious Dating Coach offers subscribers research-backed strategies to help you break their dating patterns, along with systems of accountability to keep you on track even when you’re tempted to get together with someone you know deep down inside isn’t right for you.

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