How the brain changes when we grieve

When we lose a connection to someone, the brain changes as we grieve.

 
Why it matters: Grief is an intense emotional experience. Some researchers say a better understanding of the biological effects of loss on the brain could be used to help ease the pain and yearning experienced in grieving.

“We don’t want to get rid of grieving experiences but maybe people don’t need to have profound detrimental effects on their health,” says Zoe Donaldson, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Grief often extends beyond our emotions to our thoughts, behaviors and body. It may increase the risk of a heart attack just after a loved one dies and has been linked to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, cancer and other chronic diseases. Parents who lose a child before reaching mid-life may have an increased risk of developing dementia later in life.

Most people adapt to their loss but for some — an estimated 5-10% of people who have lost someone — grief can be prolonged.

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-How to Make Sorrow a Virtue

We are increasingly a sorrowful and lonely nation. There has been a decades-long rise in unhappiness and “deaths of despair” (suicide, drug and alcohol poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis). Americans even report losing friends: according to one report, the proportion of those who claim to have no friends has quadrupled since 1990, while only a small fraction say they enjoy ten or more close friends.

The isolation and sorrow are often self-imposed. We bow our heads in wretched submission to our smartphones, withdrawing from those next to us who are similarly stooped. Americans’ absorption in the digital space of online interests has, in many ways, become a retreat from an always challenging but potentially invigorating relationship with reality.

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