The Profound impact Grief has on the brain

Grief does have a profound impact on brain chemistry. In one Danish study 3 finance professionals from major business schools tracked the performance of 75,000 danish companies two years before and two years after the CEO experienced a family death. What they found was that financial performance declined 20% after the loss of a child, 15% after the death of a spouse, and almost 10% after the death of any other family member.

Another study wanted to find out the effects that grief had on the actual brain.  They brought in 23 woman who had experience the loss of a mother or sister to breast cancer. Of that number they found that 11 had complicated grief while12 had normal non complicated grief. These woman were asked to bring a picture of their loved one who had died. These woman were shown this picture while undergoing a brain scan using the MRI. Next, these same woman were shown a picture of a stranger while undergoing the brain scan. The researchers were looking for activity in the nucleus accubens, a region in the brain most commonly associated with reward and one that has been shown to play a role in social attachment such as sibling and maternal affiliation. They also examine activity in the pain network of the brain, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and insula which has been implicated in both physical and social pain. They found that while both groups had activation in the pain network of the brain while viewing pictures of their loved one, only individuals with complicated grief showed significant nucleus accubens activations.

Complicated grief can be debilitating, involving recurrent pangs of painful emotions, including intense yearning, longing and searching for the deceased and the preoccupation with thoughts of the loved one. This syndrome has now been defined by a empirically set of criteria and is now being considered for inclusion in the DSM-V, the psychiatric manual used to diagnosed mental disorders.

Studies have also shown that in the brain images of people who are grieving, increased activity is seen along a broad network of neurons. These link areas associated not only with mood, but also with memory,perception, conceptualization and even the regulation of the heart, the digestive system, and other organs. This shows the pervasive impact that loss or even disappointment can have and the more we dwell on negative thoughts, the more developed these neural pathways become.

These studies illustrate the need to work on grief when grief occurs instead of trying to postpone that work for a later time. One writer pointed out that unless you work on grief, grief will wait for you. The proof will be in the patterns in your brain.

In summary, grief can not only have a profound impact on the financial statements of companies who have experience a variety of losses, but as the brain imaging studies showed grief can have a  impact on the neural  pathways in the brain. 

The good news is that God understands the emotional, physiological pain we are going through and he provided us with a helper to walk with us every step of the grief process.  John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.   Learning to worship God and being with fellow believers each week will help you to counter the negative thoughts that seem to intrude when grief overwhelms us.

For me, I have to say that having accepted Christ at the age of 18 was the smartest decision I ever made because only God knew the path I would be traveling.  To travel with Christ when my daughter died unexpectedly has helped me recover from this complicated grief process.