What does grief do to your body?

The loss of a loved one can feel like an earthquake. Everything that was stable and familiar is suddenly uncertain and shaky. You have to completely reorient yourself because your known world is no longer the same. This has not only emotional consequences, but also a direct impact on our bodies. In the first stage of grief, we react physically as if we are in a prolonged stress state. Symptoms such as insomnia, change in appetite, fatigue and exhaustion are common reactions.

If you think of grief as a stress reaction, you may recognize some of these physical effects. I myself remember well how my husband and I felt after my mother-in-law died by euthanasia. We felt ten years older in a short time. Whether that was really the case, I don’t know, but the intensity of the experience took an enormous toll on us. Our bodies felt heavy and every action seemed to take more effort than usual.

Sometimes grief is felt as a physical pain

Grief can manifest not only as emotional pain, but also as physical pain. It can be present throughout your body. Well-known therapist Manu Keirse describes how someone once said, “I don’t have pain, I am pain. This illustrates how grief can affect the body, sometimes concentrated in a specific place, but sometimes palpable everywhere.

From acupuncture, this is understandable because each point and meridian has not only a physical, but also an emotional and even spiritual component. Grief turns this entire energy system upside down, which can cause physical symptoms because the balance in the body has been disrupted.

Sometimes specific bodily sensations come into play. An example might be a feeling of emptiness in a certain place in your body, or just an abrasive sensation.

In a session, I sometimes invite people to explore that physical feeling. By paying attention to how you describe that physical experience and how you yourself view it, a larger story can become apparent. The body speaks in a symbolic language, and exploring that language can give new insights about your grieving process.

Unrest

Another common physical reaction to grief is agitation. As a friend of mine who lost his child told me, “In that last period of his life and after his death, I built as many as three terraces.

This may sound strange to some people, but everyone grieves in their own way. This can be seen as “instrumental grief”: a way of processing in which a person is actively engaged, focusing on problem solving and looking ahead. Physical activity can then help get a grip on the situation.

This is a reaction you see more often. While not necessarily gender-specific, this form of grieving is more common in men than in women. It is sometimes thought that men and women grieve differently, with men focusing more on action and women focusing more on emotional processing. Yet this is not a set rule. Nor is it the case that someone who grieves more instrumentally grieves less. Both ways of grieving are equally intense but express themselves in different ways. For my friend, physical activity helped regulate the tension he felt and process emotions. Grief is a personal process and can be expressed in many ways.