How does grief affect our physical health?

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by (100 points)
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It shows up in many ways like stress, not eating or over eating, chronic pain, and digestive disorders which in turn decrease mental performance. Whether your brain is releasing cortisol and adrenaline, stress will show up.
What do “chronic stress-induced” wrist pain, tension headaches, and shoulder soreness symptoms have in common? Grief.
People vacillate between positive and demeaning thoughts, sympathizing with themselves, and simultaneously judging the merit of self-indulgence. Multilevel internal conflict takes place beyond our conscious control, making it impossible to reason.
No less debilitating is the devastation inflicted when you grieve who you’ve lost. It is impossible to escape the void left by abandonment. It is quite affordable, however intensely sorrowful at times, to neglect thinking about it, which disallows altering perception and belief disallowing positive change.
Rhonda McIntosh gives quite an accessible overview of the effects of pain on mental performance even though her focus is more on injury. It’s more accurate to say that an injury combined with psychological pain renders a brain and body unconscious, motionless.
Physically, emotional pain manifests in ways identifiable by diverging from self-imposed perception of control. The more steered, the more constrained will become thoughts. An aching reality forces people to realize unshakable relationships cannot be escaped, yet reality reveals otherwise.
Take this theoretical little body, trying to escape a suffocating zone of control. Primary paradox emerges when distress intention faces sense of address, resulting in chasing invisible challenge.
Walls become confines in which approaches can guide perception, leaving a person with a portion of blank canvas they wish becoming. Discrepancy iseffects what keeps outside of undeniable natural limitations, discovery in self-imposed constraints.
Vented emotions offer make or break types of freedom ever born. Breathing created Meyer’s shift illustration instantaneously fills spaces thought closure. A majestic flight when envelop when closing their compactable envelope fails thrust. So inflating wings allows external restrictions, draws thinner than thicker boundaries.
What creates those inflating wings vent guides freeing comfort and restoring joy energizing lack of hope needed while turning white-blue-black inside, flailing in people, pointless clothes. Empowering to believe there yet.
Possibility invites creating and gives pleasure transform into blank overflowing, like denying nurture results in inching to and freeze battling thinking into.
Forming is reaching solutions braided whose flows energize living people, urge means destination guide conditional meeting forth.
Using capeclothes undermines multiplicity harvesting mind until achieving envisioning motions implies safeguarding unfurling.

100 Answers

0 votes
by (284k points)
¡Hola Profe! I am not even going to pretend that I didn't cry throughout the conversation. Time doesn't heal. But every single moment of a miracle called life is a gift. And how and with whom we share this gift and what legacy we will leave is up to us. Thank you for all your hard work and care for all of us.
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by (284k points)
Been grieving the loss of my husband of 34 years.... he took his own life almost 2 years ago and I gotta say year two is worse than year 1. The heaviness of grief can take my breath away.  I'll carry it forever and that thought can be exhausting
0 votes
by (284k points)
Hollyhocks are blooming like crazy in my garden. Every time I walk by them, I think of my Mom. When I was a little girl, she told me they were her favorite flower. I'm not sure they really were her overall favorite, but in that moment they were, and hollyhocks always take me right back there.
0 votes
by (284k points)
Just lost my grandmother. I've sent this to my Mum hope it helps her.
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by (284k points)
I love your conversations, regarding grief. You're helping me out.
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by (284k points)
I was getting weekly massages after my father passed. I needed touch but my heart was so broken, I didn’t want hugs—I just didn’t have the right people around me to get a pure agape love hug. The massage helped me transmute the pain from my grief into a loving remembrance. By healing my body, I was healing my broken heart.
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by (284k points)
I am really grateful!
After the previous episode on loss/grief understanding guided my journey (Dad passed Dec 24)
I remember thinking an episode with Mary Frances would be amazing … and here we are … at exactly the right time
Keep the good work going
0 votes
by (284k points)
Step father died of stage 4 cancer. It really traumatized me to see someone you love wither away in just a month or 2 gap. It broke my heart I hugged him and all I could feel was bones. I broke down on his shoulder and he told me he was going to be ok. Such a strong man. Miss him with all my heart goddammit. He died while my mom poured out her heart to him and a single tear rolled down his face. However he died with a small grin on his face he must have heard us. I hope he did.
0 votes
by (284k points)
Was about to search and listen to your previous grief episode and this appears! Unfortunate good timing.
by (100 points)
Hope you find the help you need
0 votes
by (284k points)
This has ripped at my heart in a huge and beautiful way.❤Thank you!
0 votes
by (284k points)
What a wonderful amount of information on all levels. Thank you!
0 votes
by (284k points)
My lovely mother passed away unexpectedly in her sleep May 5, 2025. Im looking forward to listening to this timely content.
0 votes
by (284k points)
Thank you! This has been my struggle and reading this is helping me reframe…❤
0 votes
by (284k points)
My dad died 10 months ago. It’s been insane. We held a celebration of life for him and that party went til late, the way my dad would’ve preferred it I think. We must bolster our faith systems to seek positivity within grief.
0 votes
by (284k points)
Thank you for this Andrew!
0 votes
by (284k points)
Please do an episode on Mold Illness and CIRS!

Many people would benefit from this.
0 votes
by (284k points)
Greetings Professor,
This is going to be something enlightening.
Thank you for your hardwork.
0 votes
by (284k points)
This may be a selfish request, but would you consider adding a small note to your document to all of us who love the Huberman Lab and deeply appreciate all the work you’ve done? I don’t think I’m alone in saying that, when the time comes, we will all be grieving your loss.
0 votes
by (284k points)
My wife is about to be tested for Huntington’s. We’ve been stuck in a space of potential grief for years. It’s been a journey of learning to accept the impermanence of life - nobody is guaranteed tomorrow, but it’s hard to embrace that idea.
by (100 points)
Thank You for caring for her and loving her as you are doing. Be grateful she is still alive. I can't speak for what to do after a loved one passes. I listen to these scientists who haven't a clue about real grief, or know how to handle the horrors of tumors and convulsions, but write books and talk abundantly about navigating their wonder filled lives.
0 votes
by (284k points)
No one tells you how to deal with the loss of your best friends as you get older. Person after person…

I broke up with with a guy who has Alzheimer’s. I felt like a traitor. Our whole relationship was nothing but me becoming more and more his nurse not more of his lover… he kept changing so I basically kept losing him… our relationship was too short to survive… so painful
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