Post by anne12 on Jun 15, 2024 12:44:44 GMT
www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/health/mental-health/a46739156/brain-grief/?
What does the grieving brain look like?
The crush of bereavement is often felt as a bodily experience. What, then, is going on in your cerebral matter, when you lose someone you love?
BY CLAUDIA CANAVANPUBLISHED: 14 FEBRUARY 2024
Grief, in all of its inexhaustibility, comes for each of us. If you're going through it at this moment, you'll know that its weight can manifest in a hundred ways, from an overwhelming crush in your gut to a pervasive numbness throughout your body.
That's to say, the sensation of losing someone you love can be very physical. What, though, does this hurt look like in your brain?
To answer that question, over to Nas Fatih (@nasneuro) a PhD researcher in neuroscience and genetics at University College London. Here, he walks Women's Health through what the current science has to say about grief, unpicks why it is so disorienting and what growing around the emotion looks like.
Women's Health: Why do we experience grief in the first place?
Nas Fatih: To understand this you first need to know that your brain is a prediction machine – it uses your past life experiences to forecast what to expect in the future. Essentially, the organ is a survival mechanism designed to help you scan for any potential dangers.
When we lose someone we love, it hits us hard, because our brain has not considered nor prepared for the possibility that our loved one won’t come home tonight or won’t answer the phone again. You would have spent months and years with this person and built many memories together. You’re attached to them.
If you have formed an attachment bond with someone, and they’re suddenly no longer here, some form of grief will be expected. To comprehend this, you have to know that your brain represents each of your relationships (including those with your loved ones) in the form of a map.
‘When someone passes away, the stored map of this relationship in your brain becomes inconsistent with reality’
This map builds your daily reality and expectations: you kiss your partner goodbye in the morning because you know they’ll be back home after work (they’re returned all these other times). You also know that they’ll be in the office and reachable within X amount of minutes/hours.
When someone passes away, the stored map of this relationship in your brain becomes inconsistent with reality. Your loved one can no longer be reached, and they are not where they used to be.
I went through grief with my grandma’s passing last year. When she was alive, I was fortunate to call her almost every weekend. A big part of the challenge of losing her was adapting to the reality that she was no longer reachable over the phone and that she was no longer going to make our regular weekend slot.
My brain had built an expectation: every Sunday, I would have that typical relaxing weekend feeling. I would have my coffee and that would be the cue to tell me that it’s time to give her a ring – remember the map of our relationship stored in my brain had set these expectations. When I'd remember that I was no longer able to call her, I’d experience a stress response, with my heart rate going up and my stomach churning.
Grief is a whole-body experience. The evidence shows that grief can have such an impact on your body that grieving spouses are at increased risk of heart attack after the death of their loved.
There is also a higher risk for conditions like Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome, which some people suffer from after a distressing death or after living through a trauma like a natural disaster.
Soothing a loss can take time; you cannot force your brain to learn faster and re-adapt.
WH: People often speak about grieving as coming in ‘waves.’ What might be happening in the brain, when, say, a grieving person feels fine, but then smells the perfume of their deceased loved one and is overcome with a crushing sensation of loss?
NF: Again, when someone dies, we still feel close to them – but they are no longer where they usually are, and we cannot reach them. Your brain doesn't understand that your loved one will no longer be where they’re supposed to be – after maybe thousands of days together, it might take your brains weeks or months to accept that death has happened.
‘Your neurons will fire in anticipation every time you smell their perfume’
Until then, it’s not within the realm of predictions it makes and so your neurons will fire in anticipation every time you smell their perfume, or you're stood in the living room where they used to sit. It is why people might say it ‘feels like they will walk at any moment.’
Your brain expects us to see them again, and might make you feel like you should call for the person and seek them out. For the acutely grieving brain, if your loved one has died recently, this neural map, which predicts that you'll see them again, is well-established. It’s been built over months and years. This inconsistency or conflict between our stored map of this
What does the grieving brain look like?
The crush of bereavement is often felt as a bodily experience. What, then, is going on in your cerebral matter, when you lose someone you love?
BY CLAUDIA CANAVANPUBLISHED: 14 FEBRUARY 2024
Grief, in all of its inexhaustibility, comes for each of us. If you're going through it at this moment, you'll know that its weight can manifest in a hundred ways, from an overwhelming crush in your gut to a pervasive numbness throughout your body.
That's to say, the sensation of losing someone you love can be very physical. What, though, does this hurt look like in your brain?
To answer that question, over to Nas Fatih (@nasneuro) a PhD researcher in neuroscience and genetics at University College London. Here, he walks Women's Health through what the current science has to say about grief, unpicks why it is so disorienting and what growing around the emotion looks like.
Women's Health: Why do we experience grief in the first place?
Nas Fatih: To understand this you first need to know that your brain is a prediction machine – it uses your past life experiences to forecast what to expect in the future. Essentially, the organ is a survival mechanism designed to help you scan for any potential dangers.
When we lose someone we love, it hits us hard, because our brain has not considered nor prepared for the possibility that our loved one won’t come home tonight or won’t answer the phone again. You would have spent months and years with this person and built many memories together. You’re attached to them.
If you have formed an attachment bond with someone, and they’re suddenly no longer here, some form of grief will be expected. To comprehend this, you have to know that your brain represents each of your relationships (including those with your loved ones) in the form of a map.
‘When someone passes away, the stored map of this relationship in your brain becomes inconsistent with reality’
This map builds your daily reality and expectations: you kiss your partner goodbye in the morning because you know they’ll be back home after work (they’re returned all these other times). You also know that they’ll be in the office and reachable within X amount of minutes/hours.
When someone passes away, the stored map of this relationship in your brain becomes inconsistent with reality. Your loved one can no longer be reached, and they are not where they used to be.
I went through grief with my grandma’s passing last year. When she was alive, I was fortunate to call her almost every weekend. A big part of the challenge of losing her was adapting to the reality that she was no longer reachable over the phone and that she was no longer going to make our regular weekend slot.
My brain had built an expectation: every Sunday, I would have that typical relaxing weekend feeling. I would have my coffee and that would be the cue to tell me that it’s time to give her a ring – remember the map of our relationship stored in my brain had set these expectations. When I'd remember that I was no longer able to call her, I’d experience a stress response, with my heart rate going up and my stomach churning.
Grief is a whole-body experience. The evidence shows that grief can have such an impact on your body that grieving spouses are at increased risk of heart attack after the death of their loved.
There is also a higher risk for conditions like Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome, which some people suffer from after a distressing death or after living through a trauma like a natural disaster.
Soothing a loss can take time; you cannot force your brain to learn faster and re-adapt.
WH: People often speak about grieving as coming in ‘waves.’ What might be happening in the brain, when, say, a grieving person feels fine, but then smells the perfume of their deceased loved one and is overcome with a crushing sensation of loss?
NF: Again, when someone dies, we still feel close to them – but they are no longer where they usually are, and we cannot reach them. Your brain doesn't understand that your loved one will no longer be where they’re supposed to be – after maybe thousands of days together, it might take your brains weeks or months to accept that death has happened.
‘Your neurons will fire in anticipation every time you smell their perfume’
Until then, it’s not within the realm of predictions it makes and so your neurons will fire in anticipation every time you smell their perfume, or you're stood in the living room where they used to sit. It is why people might say it ‘feels like they will walk at any moment.’
Your brain expects us to see them again, and might make you feel like you should call for the person and seek them out. For the acutely grieving brain, if your loved one has died recently, this neural map, which predicts that you'll see them again, is well-established. It’s been built over months and years. This inconsistency or conflict between our stored map of this