Grief is like a prolonged battle with an unrelenting storm, says Aliyah, 14, from Yew Chung International School in Hong Kong, and we need to hold on and roll with the waves.
Lightning reverberates throughout the sea. Crashing waves hurl at your ship, for too long have you been out at sea.
Numbness proliferates through every nerve beneath your skin. You feel nausea and you cannot move or do anything to relieve the pain. Your heart feels the pressure, getting tighter and tighter.
You should change course to find land, but you cannot. You should get up and do something. But you just cannot.
Grief is like a prolonged battle between you and an unremitting storm. My cousin has recently experienced loss, and it is hard to see your loved one go through such anguish.
It is helpful to try and understand what we go through when grieving, how it can affect our brain and our heart.
When we first experience a significant loss, our brain will essentially see it as a threat, activating the stress response fight, flight or freeze. This acute response can cause something called “Broken Heart Syndrome”, where your heart takes an abnormal, painful shape.
And it is okay to cry: it is normal actually. Other animals, including elephants, tend to shed tears when grieving. Emotional tears contain protein-based stress hormones that act as a natural painkiller, so the biochemical composition of tears is healthy and healing.
When we grieve, the senses like taste, touch, sight are no longer enjoyable. The stress response slows digestion and diverts energy to survival responses. The immune system can temporarily weaken after a loss, and affect appetite.
Grief is overwhelming. When we are unable to face or process grief we experience ”somatic” changes – where we feel disconnected from our body. Dorothy Hollinger, the author of The Anatomy of Grief, shared a story of a woman whose baby died a month after birth.
Afterwards, she lost her hearing. Voices sounded muted, indecipherable. Yet, doctors could not find anything wrong with her ears. According to Dr Hollinger, she was unable to hear properly for as long as she was unable to accept the death of her baby. “When she was able to admit that her baby had died, her hearing returned.”
We suppress grief for many reasons. Grief may emerge as a physical symptom which can be a distraction from the emotional pain. But, when grief is processed, addressed and accommodated, our brain can slowly accept the new reality.
Grief is not something easy that can or will be fixed. But, there are things we can do to work through the pain. These include exercise, prioritising sleep, good nutrition, and especially social contact.
It is good to find enriching and enjoyable activities even if they do not feel great to start with.
And we should try not to be afraid of what we are experiencing. Instead, we need to feel it in order to eventually process it.
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