This Is Your Brain And Body On Grief

  (The Huffington Post) : I lost my cat this year. I’d had him since 2011 and he’d seen me through health problems, heartache, and three house moves. We were really close. Closer than I had ever previously thought was possible with a pet, actually. His death wasn’t quite sudden but it did only happen a couple of weeks after I’d been told he was dying. I’d always dreaded the day that I’d lose him but not even really having the time to say goodbye or see him out the way that I felt that he deserved broke my heart.  His name was Collie. He wasn’t my first loss, and he certainly won’t be my last, but with losing him came the heavy feelings of grief and loss that are now all-too-familiar to me. Ultimately, as much as I’ve tried to control my grief and keep myself together, as I cried on the floor listening to Taylor Swift sing the words, “You’re the loss of my life”, I was quickly reminded that grief fundamentally changes the brain and I don’t have much say in that. What happens to your brain when you’re grieving Speaking to Scientific American, psychologist Mary O’Connor said that historically, grief was thought of as another difficult life event to deal with, on top of others. However, these days, it’s considered to be something that has been taken away from us, rather than added to our plate. O’Connor said: “When people say, “I feel like part of myself is missing,” this may not be only a metaphor. “It may in fact be part of how the brain has encoded that relationship, so the absence of that person is like an amputation rather than simply an additional stressor.” Grief has physical impacts, too. ..