The Physical Symptoms of Grief

Grief, like all emotions, isn’t just in your head.

It shows up in your body in remarkable ways, but most people have never been taught what is common in the grieving process and how grief does show up in your body – and this can leave some people feeling stuck spiraling through endless grief and pain. When you learn how grief shows up in your body, you can be more equipped, to address it and work through the process of grief and loss in this video we’re going to learn. From grief expert, Dr Dorothy Hollinger she’s, the author of, the anatomy of grief, we’re going to learn.

Abouthow grief shows up in the body and what we cando to work through it.

Now I recently recorded an interview with Dorothy about how grief impacts the body, but unfortunately, some of the video files got corrupted. So, I’m summarizing our conversation.

Hereth full-length interview is on my podcast.

What are we selling dinosaurs and course Shey? Everyone happy holidays. We are having huge Black Friday sale. So, are you ready to learn how to manage your emotions? How to soothe anxiety in your nervous system, how-to, stop being so emotionally reactive and live, the life that you dream of well now’s your chance, to buy a course all courses are going tobe 40 off now.

You probably already know about my coping skills course.

My change your brain course and my emotion, processing course but did you know that I have a course on improving relationships on journaling a course ungrounding skills, plus I’ve got a bunch of experts in. My school teaching everything from managing intrusive thoughts to improving self-esteemand in compulsive, worry dealing with grief and working through anxiety, so do yourself a favor and learn some new skills this month, checkout your options at therapy in a nutshell.com, okay. So first, let’s talk about how grief shows up in the brain when you first hear of an intense loss, your brain essentially perceives it as a threat to your survival and the amygdala triggers the stress response. Also known.

As the fight flight freeze, response loss, is an intense stress.

People may fight thyme, scream yell or get furious that someone is gone they may flee.

They may run away, deny the loss or avoid talking or thinking about it. Rothey may freeze, they may faint or go numb mute, or just shut down completely this initial response is acute, but it eventually resolves okay, second now let’s talk about how grief affects the heart.

Organ grief can stun the heart and result in broken heart syndrome the intense emotions and theodrenaline from the stress response: can cause the heart to physically swell and take, an abnormal shape, the heartbeat speedup, and this can cause physical strain on the heart.

Now, for most people going through grief their heart can handle it, but for people over65 there’s a 21 times greater chance of a heart attack the day after the loss of a spouse some of.

You may have heard that after the horrible tragedy at the olivellid school, the husband of one of the teachers who was killed there her husband also died from a heart attack. This may have been caused by broken heart syndrome NowThis. This was a really tragic situation, but foremost people, these physical changes in the heathy reverse after the acute grief period has passed.

Now as a side note, it’s also interesting to me that intense happiness can also enlarge the heart, but it’s a different part of the heart okay now.

Let’s talk about crying for a moment: before we discuss other physical changes during griefs. How do tears play into the grief process? Arethy healing it’s really common for people to crypto scream to sob as part of the grieving process even. Other animals, like elephants, seem to shed tears when they’re experiencing grief, there are three chemically different types of Tears, basalt ears, which are the regular moistening tears that happen throughout the day.

There are reflex tears which happen when there’s an irritant like when you cut an onion and there’s emotional tears. The actually contain protein-based stress hormones, one of, which is leucine and cephalin, and it’s related to endorphins and it’s a natural painkiller, so the biochemical composition of Tears is actually healthy and healing on a physical level okay. So, what are some of the other ways? That grief impacts? The body number four is decreased pleasure.

The physical senses, like taste, touch sight, are no longer enjoyable, food may seem tasteless, and, and this and the stress response can lead to number five which is loss of appetite and difficulty eating. So, the stress response slows digestion and diverts energy to survival responses and it’s very common forth bereaved to lose weight and to struggle to eat after a loss for other people.

The stress response can lead to overeating and weight gain number six another. Common symptom is difficulty sleeping, and insomnia number seven.

The stress of grief can also temporarily weaken the immune system and it’s not uncommon to get sick after a loss, but also around anniversaries of the loss.

It’s like the body is asking the bereaved to address their loss headaches and other body. Aches are also common after loss and just in general, when grief, is overwhelming or the Survivor is unable to face or process grief, sometimes that emotional pain shows up in somatic changes in changes in the body and this tends to be most common when survivors are suppressing their feelings when they’re masking them or Attempting to avoid or distract themselves from the pain they may feel numb or disconnected from their body.

Dr Hollinger shares the story: Ofa woman, whose baby died and afterward she lost her sense of hearing voices sounded muted and indecipherable and she couldn’t hear any sounds normally, but doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with. Her ears, Dr Hollinger, continues in her book. She says she didn’t hear fully for along as she couldn’t accept the death of her baby when she was able to admit that her baby had died. Her hearing returned as she put it when her hearing, came back her grieving began the bereaved.

Mother had to detach herself formal sounds because she couldn’t bear not to hearth sounds of her baby, not being able to heart.

Full capacity was the path that Mrs M sorrow took through her body now sometimes survivors don’t feel like they’re allowed to mourn. Beausite aren’t the primary person like a patentor, a spouse or their culture or their status doesn’t? Allow them to show grief, but suppressing feelings just doesn’t work in the long run. Soothe grief May emerge as a physical symptom.

Which can also be a distraction from the emotional pain but. When grief is processed, when loss is addressed and acknowledged and accommodated, the brain can gradually make space for the new reality, grief can become less intense, or rather, our ability to move forward grows our ability to feel those feelings and continue on with life strengthens so. What do we do about these changes?

I’M not going to pretend that grief is some easy.

Thing that can or should be fixed, but there are somethings that you can do to help your heart and body work through the suffering, and these include exercise, making sleep a priority: a good nutrition and especially social contact be around people. Don’t stop doing enriching and pleasurable activities, even if they don’t feelgood over time, you’ll be able to enjoy them again okay.

I’M really grateful for Dr Hollinger forsaking the time to share this information with me. I hope you found it. Helpful thank you for watching and take and take don’t be afraid of what you’re feeling don’t, let your griefs scare. You heal it allow yourself to feel that grief and in feeling it know that it will come down.

It won’t go away, but it will calm down and when they let in that Joy coincide with grief and also be changed into Joy, with the memories of the loved one.

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