Simple Ways to Cope with Grief When You're Feeling Overwhelmed

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Grief changes us. It doesn’t ask permission, and it doesn’t follow a schedule. Ways to cope with grief may seem elusive as it arrives with aching emptiness and settles in our nervous system, often surfacing in ways we least expect, brain fog, insomnia, weight changes, anxiety, exhaustion, or even numbness.

“Grief is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of love.”

Grief isn’t just emotional, grief is also somatic as it physically lives in the body when the heart can’t fully process the pain. When considering how to cope with grief, recognise how the brain becomes foggy as it tries to protect you from being overwhelmed. Sleep gets disrupted because your nervous system is still on high alert. You may feel numb, detached, or outside of your body altogether. This is your biology responding to deep emotional loss.

And yet, managing grief is not a problem to be solved. It’s the echo of love. It’s important to discover ways to cope with such a loss. It’s the space that opens when someone who mattered is no longer physically here.

It’s not a flaw in your system, you are not broken, it’s the evidence of deep love.

The True Nature of Healing: A Heart-Centred Exploration Through Four Perspectives

Dr. Gabor Maté reminds us that trauma, including grief, isn’t just what happens to you. It’s what happens inside of you when the pain is not seen, heard, or held. Suppressing grief doesn’t make it go away, it buries it in the nervous system, where it may later appear as anxiety, illness, or emotional shutdown. A vital way to cope with feelings of grief is through healing which begins when we create safe space to feel what’s been buried.

Dr. Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, teaches that trauma and grief must move through the body. You can’t think your way through it, it needs breath, movement, tears, sound, stillness, and gentle release. That’s why people often report feeling lighter after crying, shaking, or lying still under a tree. Your body is trying to find its way back to safety.

Dr. Bruce Lipton, a pioneer in epigenetics, explains how our cells literally respond to our emotional environment. Chronic grief that never gets expressed can change the biology of your body. But there’s hope, when you bring in compassion, safety, and love, your internal environment shifts. You start to heal from the inside out.

Dr. Joe Dispenza offers a comforting perspective through quantum science. If consciousness is energy and energy never dies, then perhaps our loved ones do continue in some form. Not in physical presence, but in essence. In stillness, in memory, in frequency. You may not hear their voice, but sometimes you can feel their love, in dreams, in signs, or in the space between thoughts. These reflections can provide unique ways to cope with your grief.

1 Daily Affirmations

Affirmations help calm negative thought loops and create a more supportive inner dialogue. They are especially powerful when spoken aloud or written in the morning.

Try this: Write one grief-healing affirmation on a sticky note and place it by your bed or mirror.
Example: “I carry their love, not the loss, and I choose to keep living with courage and purpose.”

2 Breathwork

Breath is a direct line to the nervous system. It brings the body out of fight-or-flight and into rest-and-digest, creating space to feel without being overwhelmed.

Try this: Inhale through your nose for 4 seconds, hold for 4, exhale gently through your mouth for 6–8. Do this for 2–3 minutes every morning or before bed.

3 Somatic Therapy and Movement

Grief often settles in the body as tension, tightness, or a feeling of being “stuck.” Somatic practices help release this emotional residue by gently moving the energy that gets trapped in the nervous system. Somatic healing allows your body to complete the stress response it never got to finish. Instead of just thinking about your loss, it helps you feel and release it, safely.

Try this: Set a timer for 2–5 minutes. Stand with your feet flat on the ground. Let your knees stay soft. Begin gently shaking your hands, arms, and then your whole body like you’re releasing tension out through your limbs. Let your breath stay relaxed. You might sigh, cry, or even laugh (whatever rises is welcome). When done, place a hand on your heart and take three slow breaths to finish.

You can also explore gentle trauma-informed practices like TRE (Tension & Trauma Release Exercises), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), yin yoga, trauma informed yoga, or working with a somatic therapist to guide you through deeper body-based grief release.

4 Journaling with Prompts

Writing helps make sense of confusing, painful feelings. It externalizes emotion so it doesn’t get stuck inside.

Try this: Set a timer for 5 minutes and write freely to the prompt: “What would I say to them if they were here right now?” or “What do I need most today?”

5 Theta Music, Healing Frequencies & Sound Therapy

Sound is one of the most ancient and effective tools for shifting our emotional state. Theta brainwave music (frequencies in the 4–8 Hz range) can guide the brain into deep rest, creativity, and emotional release, states often blocked by intense grief.

You can access this by listening to binaural beats (with headphones), isochronic tones (without headphones), or music or sound healing sessions tuned to healing frequencies like 432 Hz or 528 Hz, which are believed to support heart-centered healing and cellular harmony.

6 Ritual and Symbolic Connection

Ritual gives grief a path to move through. Lighting a candle, writing letters to your loved one, creating a small altar, or speaking to them in meditation offers a sacred space to honor the connection, allowing love to continue without being held back by pain.

Try this: Light a candle in the evening and say one thing you’re grateful for about them. You can also write them letters or keep a memory box of meaningful items.

7 Nature Immersion

Nature offers grounding, perspective, and calm, especially when words feel empty. Walking barefoot or sitting quietly outdoors resets your nervous system.

Try this: Spend 10 minutes outside without your phone. Sit on the grass, walk in the garden, or simply look up at the sky and breathe.

8 Trauma-Informed Bodywork

Grief often settles into the body as tightness, heaviness, or a feeling of being disconnected. Trauma-informed bodywork offers a safe and nurturing way to release that stored tension without having to speak a word.

Gentle modalities like craniosacral therapy, lymphatic massage, or somatic touch can help regulate your nervous system, ease anxiety, and bring a sense of calm back into the body. These sessions are designed to meet you exactly where you are — no pressure, no performance, just presence.

Try this: Book a gentle massage, lymphatic session, or Tok Sen session. If not, even self-massage, like slowly rubbing your hands, feet, or heart center can bring comfort and a sense of grounding when words aren’t enough.

9 Herbal & Nutritional Support

Grief is exhausting; physically, mentally, and emotionally. It can deplete vital nutrients, disrupt digestion, and throw sleep and hormones out of balance. Supporting your body gently through herbs and nourishing foods can make a meaningful difference in your ability to cope and heal.

Soothing herbs like chamomile, lemon balm, passionflower, and ashwagandha help calm the nervous system and promote restful sleep. Nutrients like magnesium, B-complex vitamins, and omega-3s support mood regulation and resilience under stress.

Try this: Sip a calming herbal tea in the evening as a bedtime ritual, or soak in a warm bath with magnesium salts to ease tension and help your body relax.

10 Community & Grief Support

Grief can feel isolating, but you are not alone. Sooner or later, grief touches all of our lives, and being witnessed in your pain is one of the most powerful forms of healing. You don’t need to have the right words or to explain. Often, just being seen and heard is enough to begin softening what feels stuck inside.

Try this: Reach out to someone you trust or look for a grief support group, whether local or online. You might simply send a message that says, “I don’t need advice. I just need someone to sit with me in this.” Connection doesn’t solve grief, but it holds it, and in that space, something begins to ease.

Final Thoughts: You Are Not Alone in This

Grief has no expiration date. There’s no finish line, no point where you’re “done.” There’s only learning to live alongside it, to carry the love, even when the person is gone.

Let your grief be part of your love story. Let it soften you, not harden you. Let it deepen your compassion and remind you what mattered most. You don’t need to rush. You don’t need to be okay right now. But you can take one breath, one moment, one morning at a time.

You are not broken, you are becoming, and love, in its purest form, never leaves.

Written with love by the team at Amity Wellness, a boutique wellness retreat in Phuket offering holistic detox programs and compassionate care for body and mind.