Understanding a Broken Heart – The Physiology of Grief

Last weekend I went whitewater rafting. A particularly turbulent patch of the rapids caught me off guard, when I tumbled off the raft into the water. It all happened so quickly. We hit a big rock, the raft turned vertical and I fell into the river. I was swept under and spat back out, my body tossed around like a tiny paper boat. I was gasping for air with the whitewater waves rising in front of me, crashing over my face, flooding my nose, my mouth, choking me. All I could hear was water rushing past me – stubborn, relentless, ferocious. And loud. So deafeningly loud. Breathe, I told myself, breathe the tiny breaths in between the waves, feet forward, lean back, trust the lifejacket. Helpless, I surrendered to the current, all the while making futile attempts to grasp what had happened, only to feel vastly unprepared in a seemingly familiar landscape. Then I heard someone’s shouting voice, and the raft suddenly appeared just within reach. A strong pair of hands reached out and dragged me into the raft – safe again.

Events Outside our Control – Whether Rafting or being Bereaved

The experience of being swept by the river is emblematic to me of losing a loved one through death. The overwhelming sensation of being at a complete loss, flooded with sorrow, incapacitated with aching. Consciously breathing, but not sensing any oxygen. Feeling like a poisoned dart pierced my heart, spreading gnawing, dark and sticky pain to the extremities. I’ve been told that grief is like an emotional roller coaster – some days are good, some are bad, and some days you just feel numb. For me, grief was more like a monstrous whirlpool of overwhelming feelings, pulling me under and spitting me back out, over and over, with an intention to suffocate and crumble my spirit.

I felt surprised by the intensity and the duration of my anguish, and by the fierce yearning for my loved one. I had time to prepare myself for the loss yet felt completely unprepared when it actually happened. I felt clueless, searching for thoughtful answers to deep questions that I have not yet formulated, frustrated at not being able to make meaning out of something so consuming, powerful and paralyzing.

Physical Manifestations of Grief

Grief is an extraordinarily powerful constellation of emotions that can initiate a chain reaction of biochemical events in the body.

Although we think we know what to expect of mourning, the details of every story of loss are individual. While we ponder new ways of comprehending death in life, bereavement researchers study the biochemistry of grief and offer insights into the mechanisms of what happens to our bodies when we’re left with forlorn impermanence.