The Effects of Grief on Our Health Reasons to Keep a Grief Journal during the Grieving Process Grief affects both our physical and psychological health. We grieve over different forms of loss, but the loss of a loved one (or in some cases a beloved pet who is as much family to us as our significant other, kids, or parents) is the kind that can make us sick with grief, which is an apt expression since some prominent thinkers and researchers apparently liken grief to an inflammation, or even an acute infection, to which the infected develops a natural healing response. Grief takes its toll, not only on our mental well-being, but also on our physical well-being. Grieving can weaken our immune system, cause heart problems, and disrupt our normal sleeping pattern.
  • Grief can weaken the immune system.
The Pfizer medical team cites one study where 249 people who lost an infant or child reported a total of 404 acute illnesses during the first year after the death, the most frequent being colds and flu, headaches, anxiety, infections, depression, and severe chest pains. Another study, which explored the dynamic relationship between the physical health and psychological well-being among the recently widowed, found that while there are no major health issues, there were substantial somatic symptoms during the earliest months of grieving brought on by the stress of managing “both the emotional loss associated with the death of an intimate partner as well as the shattering of one’s behavioral, social, and economic environments that were once shared by the married couple,” which can potentially suppress the immune system, leading to an overall health decline and a mortality risk spike.
  • Grief-induced heart problems include heart attack and a condition called the broken heart syndrome.
Within 24 hours of a loved one’s death, a person is 21 times more likely to have a heart attack, and the risk remains as high as 8 times likely after 1 week. The threat is even greater among those already at high risk for cardiovascular disease. Grieving may also lead to broken heart syndrome (also called stress-induced cardiomyopathy or takotsubo cardiomyopathy)—a short-term heart condition, which can occur in healthy individuals, in which part of the heart is enlarged and fails to pump normally. Its symptoms include sudden, intense chest pain, which may be mistaken for a heart attack if very severe; and it may cause short-term heart muscle failure, which is usually treatable.
  • Grief can disrupt our normal sleeping pattern.
It’s common for those who are grieving to suffer from insomnia, because they are preoccupied with thoughts of the loved one they lost, often blaming themselves for not having done what they realize too late they should have done, or imagining the days ahead without the loved one. Loss of sleep can aggravate both the weakening of the immune system and heart problems. The physical toll of grief affects our mental health, and vice versa.
  • Grief, depression, and heart diseases are closely linked.
That almost goes without saying. People who either don’t get support, or who avoid it, during the grieving process may be at greater risk for slipping into clinical depression. Already, an estimated 1 in 10 of Americans ages 18 and older suffer from depression, with the figure going as high as 33 percent for heart attack patients, because depression is closely linked to heart disease, which is the number 1 killer in America.
  • Grief predisposes us to alcohol and substance abuse, and even unhealthy, indiscriminate sex.
One of our most common tendencies when faced with the loss of a loved one is to deny it, escape from the daily reminder that the loss is irreversible. We want to escape even as we grieve. Or maybe escape is form of grieving. Either way, we flail around for a means to escape. And alcohol and drugs are almost too obvious. What’s not so obvious is indiscriminate sex. Depending on the circumstances surrounding the loss, grief can leave the grieving numb, and for some, sex helps them feel something, which is not bad if they have a partner with whom they have a healthy sexual relationship. In situations where the grieving is threaded with unresolved desires and anger and a predisposition to self-destruction, things can take a decidedly darker turn.
  • Complicated grief can put us at risk of suicide.
Unresolved/complicated grief is grief that persists for a long time. A person suffering from this type of grief fails to show any signs of getting back to normal or any interest in life in general, and is at great risk of eventually ending their life out of despair.

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While grief may cause physical and psychological health issues, there is no medical treatment for grief itself. Grief is necessary. The only way out is through. And the healthiest way to process grief is to be mindful of it, to engage it, so we can learn from it. Because grief does have so much to offer us. Explore how Journalz can help you get started on a grief journal to help you on your way to healing. Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and they will come forth later in uglier ways.

—Sigmund Freud

Explore the benefits of keeping a grief journal in our second article in this series on grief journaling.