When you’re planning a memorial service at funeral homes Richland, PA, grief is natural.
Grief is a complicated journey that can take a toll on your body, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Since everyone grieves differently, not many people can evaluate if they’re coping with it healthily or if they’re being further plunged into depression.
It’s also important to assess when should you seek help or how long will you have to cope with this painful journey? In this article, we have tried to highlight the ways that grief can manifest its symptoms.
This will give you a better idea to understand and overcome the grief journey.
How Does Grief Affect Your Body?
Grief can affect your body in so many ways where you are happy at one moment and feel angry, numb, and depressed at the other.
It’s natural to feel completely lost and vulnerable during the grief journey. Your heart actually aches and you feel exhausted but you can’t sleep. Also, it’s common to see a change in your eating patterns. You might sleep all night but wake up exhausted.
What’s worse is the effects of acute grief. It is the early response to loss that can be intense and all-encompassing.
Physical Symptoms of Grief
Here are some symptoms you may experience after losing a loved one:
- Sleeplessness
- Headaches and nausea
- Increased blood pressure
- Appetite and weight changes
- Muscle weakness
- Tiredness or fatigue
- Over energized where you start feeling too strong or indestructible
Emotional Symptoms of Grief
The worse thing about emotional symptoms is they can easily spark the nervous system. Research shows that emotional pain can trigger the same zones of the brain as physical pain.
Here are some emotional symptoms you may feel during the grief journey:
- Fear
- Loneliness
- Anger
- Guilt
- Frustration
- Emptiness
- Sadness
- Numbness
- Shock or disbelief
- Short spouts of crying
What’s the Right Time to Get Professional Help?
Unfortunately, there’s no specific time for how long will you grieve before coming to terms with the loss. The time to heal will vary from person to person. But if you’re unable to overcome the painful emotion several months after the loss and with no hope for the foreseeable future, then it’s time to get professional help.
Below are some signs to watch out for that indicate you need grief counseling or seeking a doctor’s help:
- Continuous negative thoughts. That’s a big red flag and you need to seek help right away. Try to reach out to a friend or a close family member on a call to get some motivation before heading to a grief counselor.
- Inability to sleep due to your grief if you never have had insomnia before.
- Significant changes in your eating patterns. Your health has started to deteriorate or you are not eating properly or looking after your physical hygiene.
- Experiencing intense feelings of guilt for losing the loved one.
- Not being able to complete your day-to-day activities. Even small tasks seem insurmountable
A funeral director at funeral homes Richland, PA, can help ease your load when you’re planning the memorial.