The Grief Coaster: Why Grief Brings So Much Stress

Stress never really goes away. It shows up whether you're dealing with something huge or something small, and on an ordinary day it rises and falls like a kiddie roller coaster — a few gentle bumps, nothing more.

Then something awful happens, and suddenly you're not on the kiddie ride anymore. Your stress spikes, and it can feel like you've been strapped into some enormous, terrifying coaster you never agreed to board.

Grief works the same way, only worse. It has the same steep, sickening climbs and drops as that terrifying coaster, but the ride doesn't end after a few minutes — it keeps going, peak after peak, for a long, uncomfortable stretch of time.

If you had to guess which kind of coaster does the most damage, you might point to the one with the biggest drops. But research tells us something less obvious: everyday, grinding, chronic stress can be just as hard on your body and mind as one dramatic crisis. Grief, unfortunately, gives you both at once — a major, life-altering event layered on top of ongoing daily strain.

Plenty has been written about stress in general. But grief deserves its own conversation, given how many separate stressors pile up after someone you love dies. Below, we'll look at why grief is so stressful and what actually helps.

Where the stress in grief comes from

There's no clean way to separate the stress caused by a death from the ordinary stress of daily life — they blend together into one big pot. So it may help to think of it that way: everything you're carrying gets mixed into a single stress stew, whether you like it or not. Here are some of the main reasons stress tends to spike after a loss. This isn't every possible cause, but it covers the big ones.

Change. Losing someone often means rebuilding a life that no longer looks like the one you had. One loss can set off a chain of smaller losses, domino-style, and that adds up to a staggering amount of change to absorb.

Emotion. Loss, trauma, and grief can stir up feelings that are new, intense, and hard to manage. Part of what makes anything feel stressful is the sense that you don't have what it takes to handle it. On top of that, grief often brings conflicting emotions at the same time, which creates its own kind of internal tension.

Strain between people. Conflict, distance, and hurt feelings among family and friends are a common — and painful — source of stress after a death.

Pressure. In a fairer world, grieving people would get real time and space to process what happened, sort out the practical mess, and slowly rebuild. Instead, the pressure often runs the other way — from others, and from yourself — to:

• move on
• act normal again
• feel better
• wear pants with a real waistband again
• be strong for other grieving relatives and friends
• take on new roles
• let go
• go back to work
• and so on

Frustration. Frustration is one of the most familiar everyday stressors — it happens whenever you want something and can't have it, or want things a certain way and they refuse to cooperate. After a death, the person you want most is gone, and everything you thought you understood about your life has shifted. Frustration, understandably, follows.

How you appraise stress matters

How stressful something feels often has less to do with the event itself and more to do with how you interpret it. In their 1984 book, Stress, Appraisal, and Coping, Lazarus and Folkman described two mental steps people go through when facing a potential stressor: a primary appraisal and a secondary appraisal.

Primary appraisal

Here, you're essentially asking whether the stressor applies to you at all, and if it does, whether it's a threat.

Secondary appraisal

If you decide the stressor is both relevant and threatening, you move to a second question: Do I actually have what it takes to deal with this?

After a loss, the honest answer to that question is often just no.

Faced with grief, raw emotion, upheaval, frustration, and every other peak on the grief coaster, it's natural to feel like you simply don't have the strength or skill to cope. But the ride keeps moving whether you feel ready or not, and there's no safety exit — so you find a way through.

Coping with the stress

In an ideal world, everyone would reach for healthy coping strategies. In reality, when you're overwhelmed, foggy, stressed, or running on empty, it's much easier to slide into coping habits that don't actually help.

Coping habits that tend to backfire

• Giving up
• Blaming others
• Getting defensive
• Lashing out
• Turning to substances
• Avoidance
• Isolating yourself
• Other forms of negative coping

Chronic stress has been linked to real physical and mental health problems, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, migraines, headaches, ulcers, sleep trouble, anxiety, and depression. That's reason enough for grieving people to look deliberately for healthier ways to cope. A few worth trying:

Coping habits that tend to help

• Keep a stress journal
• Keep any kind of journal, really
• Cut out stress that isn't necessary
• Practice saying 'no' and setting boundaries
• Step back from people who add stress or drama to your life
• Drop responsibilities and tasks you don't truly need to carry
• Say how you actually feel
• Keep problems in perspective
• Practice gratitude
• Let go of trying to control what you can't control
• Work through feelings that keep you stuck — anger, blame, guilt, regret, shame
• Count to ten when you're angry or overwhelmed
• Take deep breaths
• Talk to someone
• Eat well
• Get a handle on your anxiety
• Move your body
• Reach out for support
• Cut back on substances
• Do one enjoyable thing every day
• Get enough sleep
• Try meditation
• Try yoga
• Pick up a hobby
• Make to-do lists that are realistic and manageable
• Take things one step at a time
• Resist catastrophizing
• Laugh when you can
• Acknowledge the progress you make, even the small kind, every day
• Spend time with animals
• Unplug from screens now and then
• Ask for help, and let yourself accept it