GRIEF AND STRESS
People who are grieving will experience a wide range of emotions. Anxiety caused by the stress of grief sometimes comes as an unexpected event. People are prepared to feel sadness, but anxiety seems a little more foreign. In order to help validate this very real experience and emotion, I will list seven causes that commonly create stress and anxiety during the grief period.
1. Change. Whenever you experience change in your life, there is resulting stress and anxiety. Change requires adaptation. Change requires that you find different ways of coping and living your day to day lives. The change that follows the death of a loved one precipitates a colossal upheaval. Your whole world is turned upside down. You may even feel that you yourself have undergone a major change from being a happy, content individual to someone completely overwhelmed by life.
2. Loss of Control. Ever since you were a toddler, your control over your life and world has gradually increased. By the time you became an adult, you have learned how to maneuver your life circumstances so that your stress levels are reduced and manageable. As long as you feel that you have some control over the events in your life you experience a certain sense of well being and calm. When someone you love very much is suddenly taken away from you by dying, you have lost ultimate control over your life.
3. Decisions. After the death of a loved one you are faced with myriad decisions that you have never had to make before. Will there be a funeral and if so, what will it be like? Which funeral home will you choose? What about organ donation? What about the will and last wishes of your beloved? The questions can be endless, all of them requiring answers. No wonder you feel overwhelmed and frazzled.
4. Your Own Response to the Loss. Many people experience anxiety because they are completely overwhelmed with the powerful emotions of grief. Sometimes people wonder whether they are going crazy because of the emotional roller coaster they are on. They wonder if what they are experiencing is normal, and will they ever get through it.
5. Physical, Mental and Spiritual Stressors. We are whole beings, that is, all our systems are interconnected. When you go through something as traumatic as the death of a loved one, your mind, body and spirit are all affected. The immune system is challenged when you are under great stress. This can lead to a variety of illnesses, which in turn causes more stress. Your appetite may be affected so that you eat less and sometimes more if food is a way of coping for you. Your sleep patterns will often be disrupted. Mentally, you may find that you are more forgetful or you might hear imaginary noises in the middle of the night. You may find that you are more irritable than usual. Spiritually, you may feel a deep sense of abandonment and loss of meaning in your life.
6. Loneliness. After the death of a loved one you likely will experience a deeper sense of loneliness than you have ever felt before. The longing to be reunited with your loved one is intense and persistent. The realization that this can never happen is a source of great stress and anxiety. Because this experience is so powerful and inexplicable, it can cause further stress by isolating you from friends and family at a time when you need them the most.
7. Expectations. Although friends and family can be a great support, they may unwittingly also create stress for you by the expectations they place on you. Sometimes others expect you to be “finished” grieving after a certain time period. They may have expectations about how often it is appropriate to visit the grave, or even about what you wear. If you try to meet all these expectations you are sure to cause a great deal of anxiety for yourself.
It is very obvious that the grief process entails inevitable stress. By being more conscious of the roots of stress, you can learn to understand its causes and effects more clearly and also to accept it as a normal part of your grieving.
In my next article, I will talk about ways of dealing with the stress of grief.

Author's Bio: 

Grace Tallman, Bio
Passionately compassionate for people living with grief
Grace received her nursing degree from UWO and has been a practicing RN for many years. She has worked in a large variety of nursing specialties including Emergency, ICU, community nursing, and mental health. These experiences have honed her compassion and made her keenly intuitive to the grief process that is associated with life’s various losses. Her extensive medical background allows her to understand illness and the dying process, and the very real physical manifestations of grief and depression. Her skills as a mental health nurse include training in cognitive therapy. This aids her in identifying her clients’ emotional wellness and to help them to reframe their thought patterns in order to promote their emotional healing.
As a hospital chaplain for 8 years, she compassionately and actively listened to deeply hear people’s stories of loss and pain. She has been honoured to be part of the intimate journey of life with many individuals and families who were facing death and serious illness. As a Chaplain she was often called upon to address spiritual questions regarding major loss.
Grace recently graduated with a Certificate in Grief and Bereavement from King’s College at UWO. This extensive training program prepared her to work with people during the difficult stages of dying and grief. With her medical background, chaplaincy and specific academic preparation in this field, Grace is well qualified to provide support to people on their grief journey.
As a facilitator Grace has abundant experience in providing a safe and therapeutic environment to assist people to process their grief in a group setting. She has also developed and facilitated several training programs to help groups of volunteers gain insight and skill in working with dying and bereaved individuals.