How Grief Affects Your Brain and Health – And What to Do About It

Discover how grief affects your brain, health, and emotions. Unlock healing with personalised coaching. Take control of your well-being today.

Grief profoundly impacts our lives, influencing our emotions and brain function and significantly affecting the body. Understanding how grief rewires the brain and affects our health and well-being can provide valuable insights into our emotional journey and healing process.

Let’s explore how grief affects the brain, our health, and our well-being and what we can do to support ourselves during these challenging times.

Personal Reflections on Grief

During the early stages of grief following my youngest son's death, I felt like I was living in a constant brain fog. My memory was unreliable, and even simple daily tasks seemed overwhelming.

This experience is common among those grieving and is a testament to how deeply our brains are affected by such profound loss.

My mother suffered from Alzheimer's, which robbed her of her memories and eventually her life. It was a horrid disease.

As I struggled with my grief and the effects it was causing on my memory, it brought back memories of my beloved mum and how difficult it must have been for her during the earlier stages of Alzheimer’s.

The Brain's Response to Grief

When we experience a significant loss, such as the death of a loved one, the amygdala—the brain's emotional centre—becomes highly active, triggering intense emotions like sadness, fear, and anger.

This heightened activity often diminishes the function of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for rational thinking and decision-making. This is why making decisions or thinking clearly can be especially difficult while dealing with grief and loss during the early stages.

Over time, the brain's neuroplasticity allows it to adapt to the loss. This adaptation involves forming new neural connections that help integrate the experience of loss into our lives, gradually allowing us to cope better and regain our cognitive functions.

Healing from grief and loss involves this gradual rewiring of the brain, helping us find a new normal.

Trauma and the Brain

How Grief Affects the Brain and Health — Areas of the Brain Affected by Grief

Trauma triggers a different yet related response in the brain. The amygdala initiates the fight-or-flight response, releasing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol.

These hormones prepare the body to deal with immediate danger but can also impair the hippocampus, which is crucial for processing memories. As a result, trauma can lead to fragmented or incomplete memories of the event and the feeling of being in a constant brain fog.

Prolonged exposure to trauma can result in an overactive amygdala and a less effective prefrontal cortex, contributing to ongoing symptoms such as:

anxiety,
hypervigilance, and
difficulty concentrating.

This hyperactive state is the brain's attempt to protect itself but can significantly disrupt daily functioning and emotional well-being. The fight-or-flight response can become chronically activated, leading to persistent stress and health issues.

When I made these discoveries during my research, it felt like music to my ears. I wasn't suffering from Alzheimer's; it was my brain's way of protecting itself through the fight-or-flight response.

Understanding this mechanism helped me realise that my symptoms were part of the brain's natural defence system, not a sign of cognitive decline.

By recognising the role of the fight-or-flight response in grief and trauma, we can better address the underlying issues and take steps to heal.

Engaging in emotional regulation techniques and cognitive-behavioural therapy can help calm the amygdala and reduce the overactivation of the fight-or-flight response, improving mental and physical health.

How Grief Affects the Brain

What does grief do to your brain? Grief doesn't just affect our immediate emotional state—it can fundamentally change how our brain operates.

Studies have shown how grief affects the brain and can alter the brain's neural pathways. For instance, grief can shrink the prefrontal cortex and enlarge the amygdala, which may lead to prolonged emotional distress and heightened stress responses. These changes can affect our ability to regulate emotions and make rational decisions.

Furthermore, chronic grief can:

disrupt sleep patterns,
weaken the immune system, and
increase the risk of cardiovascular issues.

This is because the brain remains alert, constantly processing the emotional pain and loss.

Coping with grief and loss effectively is essential to mitigating these impacts on health and well-being.

Brain Fog: A Physical Response to Grief

When you're grieving, your body interprets grief as trauma, causing constant brain fog. This means your brain can become overwhelmed with thoughts of grief, sadness, and loneliness, making it difficult to focus on everyday tasks.

Brain fog can affect your memory, concentration, and cognition. However, it's important to remember that this is a natural part of the grieving process.

The experience of brain fog varies from person to person. You may need help completing routine tasks, forget appointments, or misplace items.

You may find that you can't remember exactly how you got there after driving somewhere. Typical everyday tasks that wouldn't usually be challenging can seem overwhelming.

Recognising that your brain isn't working at total capacity while grieving, you should avoid making big decisions.

It's essential to take care of yourself physically as best you can. Most importantly, be gentle with yourself: this fog is typical and will become easier to manage with time.

What to Do About It: Healing Strategies

While the brain's response to grief and trauma can be intense, several strategies can help facilitate healing and recovery:

Emotional Regulation Techniques

Mindfulness meditation, deep breathing exercises, and progressive muscle relaxation can help calm the amygdala and reduce stress. These techniques promote a state of relaxation and help to bring the prefrontal cortex back online, aiding in better emotional regulation and decision-making.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT can be highly effective in addressing the negative thought patterns that often accompany grief and trauma. By reframing negative thoughts and developing healthier thinking patterns, individuals can better manage their emotions and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Healthy Lifestyle Choices

Due to the effects of grief on the body, regular physical activity, a balanced diet, and sufficient sleep are crucial for overall brain health and recovery.

Exercise, in particular, has been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, improve mood, and enhance cognitive function.

According to a 2019 study that included data from 19,806 participants, spending at least 120 minutes in nature per week can significantly boost health and well-being and relieve stress and anxiety.

In my article "Running and Grief - How Running Helped Me in My Grieving" for Brainz Magazine, I shared how running helped me find solace and clarity. Through running, I discovered that it allowed me to navigate the pain and find strength within myself. As we lace up our shoes and hit the pavement, we embark on a journey towards healing and renewal.

Coaching for Healing and Resilience

Healthy Lifestyle Choices — Nature Can Relieve Stress & Anxiety

Understanding these neurological processes is the first step towards healing from grief and loss. As a coach, I offer personalised strategies to help you navigate grief and trauma:

Emotional Regulation Techniques

Learn mindfulness and relaxation practices to calm the amygdala and reduce stress.

Cognitive-Behavioural Approaches

Reframe negative thoughts and develop healthier thinking patterns.

Healthy Lifestyle Choices

When faced with grief and adversity, prioritising our well-being becomes crucial. It involves engaging in practices that nourish and uplift us, such as:

spending time in nature,
practising mindfulness,
seeking support from loved ones, or
engaging with a coach.

Through Well-BEing, we strengthen ourselves against life's challenges, emerging stronger, more resilient, and more whole than before.

Take the first step towards resilience and recovery. Let's work together to harness the brain's incredible capacity for healing and growth.

Contact me today for a free initial consultation - Book A Call.

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Highlights

This content provides a comprehensive look at how grief and trauma affect the brain and includes actionable steps to facilitate healing and resilience.

By understanding how grief profoundly impacts the brain, triggering an overactive amygdala and diminished prefrontal cortex function, we can better navigate this emotional journey. Engaging mindfulness, CBT, exercise, and healthy lifestyle choices can calm the brain's stress response and facilitate neurological healing. With personalised coaching, we can find our path to resilience, harnessing the brain's remarkable ability to adapt and integrate even the most profound losses. Though the grief journey is challenging, we have an incredible capacity for growth and renewal.

Categories: : Tracey A Chapman Well-BEing Advice