Grief is a complicated feeling that can be expressed in many different ways. It is important to know how grief affects the body because it could provide insight into your symptoms, or help someone else who’s grieving.
Visiting funeral homes Willoughby Hills, OH, can be difficult. One reason for this is that grief affects your body in ways that are not immediately obvious. You might feel the effect in physical ways. When grief affects the body, it becomes harder to move past. You may feel stuck, or as though you need help moving to the next stage in life.
The Effect on Mind and Body
Everyone dies at some point. Because of this, every single culture has experience in laying their loved ones to rest. The emotions that you feel are uniquely your own. However, there is a shared core that people around the world can feel with you. Countless people have gone through something similar. The first way grief attacks is in your sleep. It’s very, very common for grieving people to have trouble sleep.
If this happens to you, the first step is to take stock of the situation. When you find yourself sleeping too much, you need to find things in your life to distract and heal the pain. When you’re not sleeping enough this is also true, but you may need to do something more drastic as well. Too little sleep can have a serious effect on your life.
What does grieving do to your body?
When a loved one dies, it’s common for our bodies to react in many different ways. For example loss of appetite; trouble sleeping; depression; anxiety.
Chronic stress also is an issue when dealing with grief and can lead to more serious issues such as feelings of anger and bitterness or mental breakdowns that could take days if not weeks before recovering from them completely.
These are very difficult times but there are things you can do while grieving like staying active by doing simple physical activities like walking or exercising at the gym. This period will help reduce some of those negative effects on your body caused by chronic stress.
How does grief affect the brain?
Grief can reinforce wiring in your brain that locks it into a permanent stress response, Shulman said. To promote healthy rewiring and take control of this process for yourself, you need to strengthen parts of the brain that regulate such responses.
How long does it take to go through the grieving process?
It is said that there are no set timetables for grief. The whole process can last anywhere from 6 months to 4 years, with some people feeling better in as little as six weeks and others not until four years have passed.
Some may start feeling a bit more like themselves within a month or two of having lost someone while others might feel almost nothing at first but progress over time towards hopefulness when they see small changes- maybe being able to focus on work again without crying or getting up earlier each morning even if they’re still sad during most days.
Your sleep may not be the only physical manifestation of your grief. For the same reasons, you may have trouble eating as well. As with sleeping problems, your eating trouble can take a few different forms. You may find it a struggle to finish a meal. Or, you may be more prone to overeat. Either way, you’re going to have a serious effect on your life.
To combat this, you can focus on mindful eating. That means that instead of thinking about your loved one or your life during meals, you can focus on the food in front of you. It might seem strange at first, but this is actually a known strategy for gaining control of your diet. Eliminate all thoughts that aren’t about your meal.
Key Take Away
Grief is a strange and personal emotion. How it will affect you particularly is hard to predict. However, experts agree that physical symptoms often exist. Physical problems may need a physical cure. If you’re feeling physically low and weak, you can try increasing your exercise. A grueling workout serves two purposes. It distracts your mind and it tires your body.
When you’re dealing with the physical effects of grief, it can be very hard to turn your attention to anything else. It can alter your life in ways that you’re not expecting. Yet, there’s no way to live in the world and never be touched by grief. That’s why humankind has discovered ways to alleviate the pain.
The physical effects of grief can be more severe than mental ones. However you’re affected, you will naturally want to change the way you feel. The natural grieving process can’t be altered. But, you can gain insight into what you’re going through.
When you go to funeral homes Willoughby Hills, OH, it’s an emotional event.