In the weeks after my father died, I was numb.
The physical effects of grief had finally caught up with me.
These can include trouble sleeping, illness, infection, and even heart problems.
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If your grief literally hurts, know that its normal.
But that doesnt make it any less difficult to navigate.
Grief can trigger a ton of physical symptoms.
Grief is the natural response to the loss of someone or something that is very important to us.
Our physical sensations can mirror the emotional heaviness of loss, says Kuehnle.
Learning to listen to these bodily cues is important.
Broken heart syndrome is another common physical manifestation of grief that I experienced.
For me, that meant chest tightness and difficulty breathing during particularly intense bouts of grief.
For others, its been linked to serious complications like stroke,heart attack, and heart failure.
There are a few ways to tell that your physical pain is connected to grief.
Context matters, says Kuehnle.
You might also find that these physical sensations are accompanied by emotional responses like sadness or yearning.
Its essential to address the emotional and physical sides of grief in tandemignore one, and the other suffers.
Suppress the emotions, and your body will remind you.
Disregard the physical symptoms, and the emotional load becomes harder to bear.
Worse, prolonged neglect can take a lasting toll on your health.
They were also at elevated risk forheart disease, inflammatory conditions, and immune dysfunction.
Self-carein this context is nonnegotiable.
Though this may seem obvious, grief made even the simplest tasks feel overwhelming or pointless for me.
Not sure how to do this?
Want to take it a step further?
This allows you to release physical stress rather than just desensitizing yourself to it.
Somatic therapy was without a doubt the most transformative tool in my grief toolkit.
Over time, this trained my body to respond less intensely.
Because grief causes an intense physical stress response, engaging in activities that soothe your nervous system can help.
Kuehnle recommends practices like:
Grief can causephysical stagnationand lethargy.
Therapy can be instrumental in helping you process grief holistically, says Dr. Lee.
The same goes for other medical professionals.
