Practicing Self-Care While Grieving

09.06.2024 | 4 min read

Taking care of yourself and being mindful of your mental and overall health can be especially difficult when you are grieving. Self-care is important during times of loss, even though it may be difficult. Here are some ideas and tips for taking care of yourself and being mindful of your personal mental health while you grieve.

1. Maintain your social connections.

Many grievers tend to self-isolate and close themselves off from their usual social lives and obligations. While it is important to give yourself space and time to grieve, closing yourself off during a time of loss can be harmful to your personal mental and overall health. It is important to find healthy ways to get social interaction and to spend time with those with whom you can be open and honest with about your feelings of loss and grief.

2. Seek out support from others who have been through a similar loss.

It is important during times of grief that you can let out your feelings and thoughts. Speaking about your grief can help to process it. Friends and family may be able to fill the role for you, but there are also bereavement talk groups for those who lost a loved one to a specific cause such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, or other illnesses. Talk therapy and counseling for loss specifically can be of great help for moving through feelings of grief.

3. Be honest and clear about what has happened.

Others in your life may be able to sense something is wrong. It is not inappropriate or out of line to let others know you are going through a loss in your personal life. This is clear and effective communication. Acting as if nothing is wrong will likely not help the grieving process, will not help to maintain your obligations or responsibilities either and may only serve to confuse yourself and others. Remember you are not alone in feeling grief and that most people have experienced great loss in their life.

4. Be kind to yourself and practice positive self-talk.

Learn how to practice positive self-talk during times of grief. Many people mourn time they spent apart from or words they said or didn’t say to their loved one. Learning self-acceptance and forgiveness in this context can be difficult, but holding onto these regrets or negative memories is likely to make the mourning process more difficult. Forgiveness therapy during times of loss has been shown to relieve grief-related depression, anger, hostility and stress.

5. Allow yourself space and time for grieving.

Grief is a psychological response to loss, causing sadness, yearning, fixation of thoughts, and an inner focus on memories or keepsakes from the lost loved one. Grief is not something that just goes away when ignored or something that can neatly be tucked away in a healthy manner. It is vital to give yourself grace, allow yourself to feel the emotions and stress and positively approach those emotions.

You may feel erratic and not in control of your emotions, but those feelings can get worse if you do have a healthy time and place to channel them. Healthy grieving does not move past or over these emotions, but instead, involves processing them and allowing the grieving people to reintegrate into their daily lives.

6. Stay physically active or increase your physical activity.

Many people become less physically active or lose interest in exercise or sport when they are grieving. Regular physical activity is important to fight off stress, anxiety and depression, which all are more likely to develop during times of grief. A 2021 study showed that increasing physical activity during times of grief can help improve overall mental health during times of grief. Physical activity can build feelings of personal strength, freedom and sense of self, following the death of a parent, specifically.