How Can Grief Affect the Body?

Grief, in and of itself, is defined commonly as the natural reaction to the loss of some living thing or someone close to us. It is a deep level of sorrow, especially if caused by the death of someone with whom we have formed a bond or affection. It usually impacts us in pieces; some refer to them as waves or bursts of intense feelings, followed by periods between the ‘episodes’ when we are more ourselves, with our sense of self-esteem and human intact.

However, there are times when the episode-like timing becomes more of a constant feeling of sadness, loss, and intense pain. Other negative emotions may attach or combine with the sense of grief we are experiencing and exacerbate the impact of the emotion.  Since our emotional pain and physical pain responders are located in the same region of the brain, when this increased and complicated sense of grief emerges, our bodies are negatively impacted.

Symptoms such as increased inflammation, fatigue, weakened immune systems, and prolonging other ailments are common results of how our bodies can be affected by grief.  With fatigue, you may either feel like you’re running on empty all the time, run down and want to sleep, or nap frequently; however, many times, sleep is not something you can achieve, which only serves to make the fatigue worse. Or you can experience the opposite response where you are sleeping very often and for excessively long periods of time but still feeling the strain of grieving and very fatigued despite all the sleep you are getting.

If you are experiencing increased inflammation, you most likely are also feeling almost flulike aches and pains.

It is not uncommon to experience shortness of breath and tightening in the chest, which one should not ignore as it can lead to cardiac issues.

Headaches result very often due to the added stress brought on by grief. This may be coupled with an inability to attend to facts or a sense of zoning out, especially if involved in areas that are demanding our attention and mental energy. It also can cause a high degree of forgetfulness and confusion.

Our stomachs may react to grieving by causing severe changes in appetite, either causing a significant decrease in our ability to eat or a huge increased desire to overeat. And in cases when appetite isn’t impacted severely, regular digestive issues such as feeling nauseous or an increase in upset stomach feelings.

It is also not uncommon to find a weakened immune system, resulting in getting sick more frequently or experiencing more severe symptoms to what might otherwise be minor discomfort.