The Somatic Symptoms of Grief

The feeling of grief can be physical, as well as mental and emotional.

If you've lost someone important to you, it goes without saying that it is very upsetting and hard to cope with. Initially, you might have shock and numbness, followed by immense sadness, confusion, anger, or anxiety. Much has been written about the emotions and cognitive aspects of grief, but less attention is paid to how it feels physically. This post explores the somatic feeling of grief and proposes some ways to cope with it.

What are some of the somatic grief symptoms?

As psychologist Mary Frances O'Connor writes in her book, The Grieving Body, grief affects human bodies in profound ways. After a loss, your body and mind struggle to adapt to a new reality that our loved one is no longer here and in your life.

After a sudden and unexpected loss, we can have symptoms similar to traumatic stress, which impacts hormones, the cardiovascular system, the immune system, and also negatively impacts sleep patterns and appetite. can also affect one's sex drive, either decreasing it or increasing it.

Your experience might be unique to you, but it might include a burning feeling in the stomach, heaviness in the chest, mental fogginess, fatigue, lethargy, and emotional numbness. You might temporarily feel detached from yourself and everything around you. It might also feel unsafe to inhabit your body completely, as there is so much emotional pain connected with being present.

Grief-related anxiety can also be felt in the body.

You might experience fear and panic about someone close to you dying after your loss. You might also worry about dying the same way that you lost your loved one. The world might feel unsafe to you.

It's more than just thoughts that guide these emotions. It is also the way your body responds to your thoughts. You might feel rapid heartbeat and sweatiness, as well as shortness of breath. You might feel achiness, and your jaw might be very tight. All this stress can take a toll on you, and you might find your muscles involuntarily flexing, ready to flee or fight. Your body might feel tense, and your stomach might feel queasy.

Somatic grief symptoms can affect how you take care of yourself.

This, in turn, can make your appetite lower and make you eat less. This might result in weight loss that is not sustainable or healthy.

Other people might eat more to mask their emotional turmoil after a loss. You might find that food is comforting and soothing. It might lead to eating even when you're not hungry, just to feel safe and grounded with food. As a result, you might gain weight and not be happy with how your clothes fit and how you look.

You might also not care about feeding yourself, and food might turn you off for a while. It might seem like too much work to prepare a meal. And it might be easier just to ignore your hunger signals. It goes without saying that this is not healthy for you, as you still need to eat and drink water to survive.

You might spend more time in bed or being inactive because you feel fatigued. Your body might feel achy and uncomfortable. Your sleep patterns might be negatively impacted too, either sleeping more than usual or not being able to sleep normally and restfully.

Sleep is one of the many body functions that can be disrupted by grief. Photo: Nina Hill.

What can you do about somatic grief symptoms?

Some of these symptoms are temporary and might fade with time. However, it is important to get support and make sure that you maintain healthy self-care patterns as you grieve. This might be challenging because your emotions tell you that nothing matters anymore, you might feel guilty for being alive while your loved one is no longer alive. It might also feel like you're not in charge of your body or that you're disconnected from it.

Somatic therapy can help you gently and gradually reinhabit your body so that you can take better care of yourself. You might learn to recognize when there is disturbance emotionally and how your body is responding.

Somatic therapy also helps you express your grief non-verbally and contact the ways that you inhabit this stress physically. When you start to notice how you're responding physically to the stress of grief, you can make better choices about how to handle it and cope with it.

You can explore Somatic Stress Release in individual therapy. You can also participate in a new group that is forming that teaches you Somatic Stress Release skills in a safe and comforting environment with other people who want to heal. Here's a link for learning more about that: https://www.lisaslarsen.com/somatic-skills-group

You can explore how stress is affecting you physically and learn to recognize and cope with somatic grief symptoms effectively. This can lead to better physical and emotional well-being.

If you're interested in Somatic Stress Release, please schedule a 15-minute free consultation to see if individual somatic therapy or the group would be a good match for you. Either way, I encourage you to use this resource to help you cope with somatic grief symptoms. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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