Grief and The Body

Grief and the body

11:54

Grief is felt so uniquely in every individual and what I have and still am going through may manifest in a totally different way to another person's experience.

There are scientific facts researched and written about how the body reacts to grief. I have and I still am feeling the affects of grief but now I am at the stage where I am trying to move forward by doing some positives things which is explained later on in this blog.

Let's start at the top.

Because grief stems from the trauma of a loss it triggers the fight or flight response. Parts of the brain shut down for survival. The amygdala (The Brains emotional alarm) becomes extremely active causing symptoms such as brain fog, or feelings our loved one will appear any moment (disbelief) , and headaches. It is a whole brain response effecting our cognitive ability, our emotional responses and physical health.

Broken heart syndrome is very real. During experiencing grief our hearts can be under enormous amount of stress and strain and it can physically swell the heart. We may experience tightness and pain in our chest, mimicking the signs of a heart attack. If some people suffer with a weakened heart anyway, this can cause a serious problem. For most the symptoms of broken heart syndrome subsides over time.

Prolonged grief elevates cortisol and inflammatory markers and this can weaken the immune system. The brain interprets the loss as a survival threat which can suppress the infection fighting white blood cells. People can become unwell easier such as catching a virus or can cause other issues within the body. If the grief is prolonged it can cause long term or permanent health issues.

Our brain and our digestive system is a two way axis, so our stress responses in our brains directly affects the gut. When we experience stress such as grief blood flow is directed away from our gut to supply our major muscles. grieving can also disrupt our microbiome balance reducing vital beneficial bacteria. Our eating habits may be disrupted too and for some they may lose their appetite but others may comfort eat, both not ideal for our overall health.

Grieving is painful. The pain is often felt throughout the body but for some this maybe localised to certain parts of their bodies. If the grief is complex or prolonged then the pain felt can last quite a long time. Trauma can elevate the pain in conditions such as fibromyalgia and other chronic fatigue and pain syndromes. Again the stress hormone cortisol is responsible for increasing inflammation which leads to muscle tension and joint pain.

Any traumas we experience may disturb our sleep. We may suffer from insomnia, have nightmares or be woken up due to suffering from PDSD. Sometimes if the grief is complex people can re-live their painful experience and may become fearful of falling asleep.

PTSD

If we experience both grief and trauma together it can lead to PTSD. There are major differences in experiencing sadness over a loss and having flashbacks and nightmares relating to how the death happened. I am not going to pretend I know what I am talking about as this is a very specialised subject. If you are feeling that you maybe suffering from PTSD please seek help from your GP or look online at websites such as PTSD UK.

Please do not suffer alone when there is help available.

So how can we help ourselves whilst feeling the debilitating effects of our grief?

We need to be kind to ourselves. What we have and are going through is like no other pain and the more we understand what is going on for us in our minds and our bodies the more we can try to be gentle with ourselves. There are of course practical things we could do and there is no right or wrong here, just what works for you. There is also no time limit for grief and for some grief lives alongside them for the rest of their lives.

When we are in the first throes of our grief journey, it is very difficult to do anything for ourselves that will help us. We are far too upset, angry, depressed and all the other emotions we experience that doing anything seems impossible. We may feel what is the point or we just do not have any reserves in us to be able to move forward.

I now realise I had to be in that state of desolation, as difficult as it was I needed to allow myself to feel the pain. There is a saying ' The deeper the love, the deeper the pain' If we love someone so very much, it is going to hurt so very much when we lose them.

Be with people

I would say the best thing I did was to allow people to comfort me, to support me, to show me they care. Not all people can cope with supporting someone going through pain and I will write more about this in an up-coming blog, but those that you feel are with you step by step through your grief journey, truly let them in.

Distraction

Please be mindful with this. Distraction for me it worked at first. I threw myself into my work, starting a voluntary job, into creating a website in Connor's name, into plans for the future, into exercise and generally keeping busy. the reason I say be mindful is that although it is ok to distract ourselves, it can stop us from facing our grief head on and then what happens to it? For me, I exercised too much and for a body already in pain because of trauma and fibromyalgia I only increased the pain I was experiencing so I had to take a step back and be more gentle with myself. It has made me think that perhaps I need to find a balance between doing and stopping for a little while. I will be honest, it is the stopping that scares me a little.

Crying

Do cry, it is ok to cry. If you are locking yourself away from life and crying all the time then that may not so great but we are going to have many moments when we cry. Crying is a natural part of the grief process and as horrible as it feels to cry it will actually help. There are three different chemically types of tears.

1) Basal tears... These are tears that lubricate yours eyes and are there all the time to keep your eyes protected and nourished.

2) Reflex tears... These occur when there is an irritant such as cutting up onions.

3) Emotional tears... These are the tears we produce when we are sad. These tears contain stress hormones, one of which is Leucine-Enkephalin. This hormone is related to endorphins and is a natural painkiller.

Crying restores our emotional balance as it activates the parasympathetic nervous system. crying is also a way of being honest about how you are feeling and that is more than ok.

Body

It is important to look after our bodies. Our bodies have a brain that stores all those beautiful memories of our loved one. We have a heart that is capable of feeling and holding onto the love we had and still very much have for our loved one. Through our bodies we carry the pain, the joy and the hope and I am slowly realising that through me, through what I do from now on, Connor lives on in me. I am not saying I am quite there yet to let go of the pain and the anger but I am wanting to more and more hold onto the beautiful memories and the beautiful love in my heart for Connor. Connor's dad,Richard asked me ' what would Connor want for you?' and if I am honest with myself I know exactly what he would want and I am trying my best. Every day, I show up and I am more and more aware of what I need to do to help myself heal and I know that does not mean forgetting about Connor, it means carrying him with me, in hopefully a healthy body and mind.

Professional help

We may need help and support outside of our immediate network of family and friends. I feel I do. I am wanting to explore my feelings of guilt and anger because these are emotions that although natural have a danger of taking over and I do not want that to happen. I also am aware that the way that Connor died is extremely difficult to move on from and I feel I am unable to achieve this by myself. There are plenty of online support groups but I have chosen not to go down this road. I am sure they would be very helpful to many people so again I would say just try and see what works for you. I have decided to have one to one counselling, it may work, it may not but I want to give it a try.

Your journey

You maybe wondering how to navigate grief. For some, just getting out of bed in the morning maybe difficult and others may feel they function perfectly well in their day to day lives but may fall apart in private. Where ever you are on your journey, just try to do what feels right for you. Please know though that you do not need to go through it alone, there will be someone close by who wishes to hold your hand through it all' if that is what you need. Some empathy and some self compassion will be our friend. At first we may be wondering around with unprocessed grief but at time passes we may feel a little lighter or see a glimpse of hope. We may feel guilty about having some better days but it does not mean we have forgot our loved one, the grief is still there, we have just learnt to live a new normal alongside grief.

Other people's perspective.

As we navigate through our grief there will be people concerned about us and worried about how we are dealing with things and some may project their expectations for how long our grieving should last. some may not understand how we are processing our grief and there will be different opinions and advice given and this can get quite overwhelming. My advice would be just do what you feel you need to do for you, there is no one size fits all when grieving.

Just an extra little story, My nan, who I was extremely close to passed away on my birthday and for a while I would not celebrate my birthday on my actual birthday because the date now meant something else for me. As time went by I asked myself what would my nan be telling me to do? That was the change for me. I realised my nan would hate to think I was miserable on my birthday and I knew that would upset her so from then I just woke up every birthday and thought my nan would be wishing me happy birthday and telling me to have a great day. I understand what Connor's dad is telling me and yes I will get there too and think that Connor would hate it if I was sad. I promise Richard, I am working on it but I cannot put pressure on myself and it needs to be in my own time in a way that works for me.