Grief often triggers many difficult emotions, with anxiety being one of the most common. People can experience anxiety about whether they are grieving properly, about how long the pain of grieving will last, and also about navigating the uncertainties brought by the loss. Additionally, loss can cause people to question the purpose and meaning of their life, which can cause existential anxiety.
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Can Grief Cause Anxiety?
Anxiety is a common symptom when someone is experiencing grief. Immediately following the loss of a loved one, a person can experience a general inability to regulate emotions, including anxiety.1 Additionally, a built-in part of grief and loss is a lot of change in the future, and many people have a fear and anxiety of change.
Grief can also cause existential anxiety, where a person begins to think about the meaning of life and where a person may go after death. A person may also experience anxiety surrounding their grief if they feel like others will judge them for what they are grieving over (i.e., the loss of a job or pet) or how they are grieving (i.e., feeling angry grief rather than sad).
Most people who are experiencing grief because of the death of a loved one will report that the second year is more isolating and difficult because society expects them to go back to work and resume normal life again. The grieving person goes from having support without expectations to experiencing a lack of support when daily living expectations resume. Meeting and missing expectations can be another reason why anxiety is often high during times of grieving.
Here is how the different types of grief can cause anxiety:
- Acute grief: Acute grief is the experience of grief immediately following the death of a loved one. This period is associated with anxiety symptoms, as well as increased sadness, anger, numbness, difficulty concentrating, and an inability to regulate emotions.1
- Complicated grief: Complicated grief is when a person is finding it difficult to handle grief triggers and heal. They may begin to experience severe anxiety or panic attacks throughout the day in anticipation of experiencing symptoms of grief that are too overwhelming.2
- Disenfranchised grief: Disenfranchised grief occurs when other people are unaware of or minimize a person’s experience of grief.3 It is especially common after the loss of a pet or perinatal loss. This can cause a person to feel anxious about showing that they are grieving because they fear being judged.
- Anticipatory grief: Anticipatory grief and anxiety go hand in hand. As someone sits in the in-between zone of knowing they will lose someone or something but have not yet experienced the loss, their anxiety and worry about what the future only grows, and also their fear of not being able to handle the loss.
- Traumatic grief: When someone experiences an unexpected loss, they may struggle with traumatic grief. Traumatic grief often involves high levels of anxiety because the person cannot make sense of how or why the loss occurred and, therefore, worry that it will suddenly happen again.
- Unresolved grief: Unresolved grief can cause anxiety because the long-term symptoms often impact a person’s ability to care for their physical and emotional needs. Someone who is losing sleep, unable to eat or participate in normal activities, and continues to ruminate on the “whys” and “what ifs” about the loss is more likely to experience anxiety than someone who seeks early intervention and coping skills.
5 Stages of Grief & Anxiety
The 5 stages of grief are a theory of understanding loss, which involves 5 stages or emotions, including denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Anxiety can occur at any of these stages. However, a person is most likely to experience anxiety during the bargaining stage of grief when someone wants control over their loss. Anxiety might look like ruminating on “what ifs” about the loss of a loved one.
9 Ways to Overcome Grief-Related Anxiety
Therapy is the best way to overcome grief-related anxiety because it provides a safe space to explore your loss, as well as develop coping skills for the anxiety you are experiencing. Aside from therapy, practicing good self-care, leaning on your support system, and allowing yourself to feel your emotions are all ways to manage anxiety due to grief.
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Here are nine ways to relieve grief-related anxiety symptoms:
1. Concentrate on Your Basic Daily Needs
You cannot begin to heal if you are not taking care of your body and mind in small ways. Concentrating on helping yourself in small ways (like bathing, resting, eating, getting sunlight, and distracting yourself from your anxiety) will help over the long term. Anxiety can make it tempting to stay in bed or only eat sweets, but making sure to rest and get fresh air, movement, water, and healthy foods will keep everything in balance.
2. Seek Professional Support
Speaking to a therapist or counselor who specializes in treating grief and anxiety is a crucial step to reducing grief and anxiety. A therapist can help you deal with your grief and anxiety and begin to explore what life without the person will look like. It is important to find and choose a therapist whom you trust and feel comfortable with. A deciding factor of therapy being sucessful or not is whether a person feels safe with their therapist.
An online therapist directory is a great tool for finding a therapist in your area who specializes in grief and anxiety. You can also filter for therapists who take your insurance. Alternatively, many hospice organizations will have opportunities for people in the community to get care during hospice care and after bereavement. An online therapy for anxiety could be a good option if you would like therapy with flexibility or are fine with meeting online instead of in person.
3. Find a Grief Support Group or Community
Group therapy or support groups provide an opportunity to both help and be helped, which can make life feel a bit more meaningful after loss. Being surrounded by people who are struggling with grief and anxiety can make you feel less alone and also offer an opportunity to learn how others are coping with the same struggles.
There are many unique group supports available, so you can join a group specific to the type of grief you are experiencing, such as for the loss of a parent, child, spouse, sibling, etc. Group therapy and support groups are available online and in person, making it easily accessible to all.
4. Practice Journaling
Journaling about your grief can be helpful, especially when you allow yourself to be honest about your feelings. The most helpful journaling is free-flowing, rather than focusing on writing something that makes sense and that you think you will read again in the future. Allow yourself to make spelling and grammar errors, and don’t worry if it is incoherent. It’s more about allowing yourself to begin to uncover thoughts and feelings that are hard to articulate out loud.
5. Do Things That You Used to Enjoy
Grief and anxiety can make it difficult to feel happy, and things that used to excite you may feel empty now. Additionally, having someone (or something, like a home or job) taken from you can make you feel stripped and not worthy of enjoying life. The reality is that you are more than your loss and grief.
Finding activities that create structure can give you a routine and ways to remind yourself of who you were before the loss. Even if initially it doesn’t feel fun, over time, you will begin to connect with yourself again and be able to enjoy life without feeling grief-induced guilt.
6. Do Things That Make You Feel Closer to the Deceased
If you are experiencing grief because of the loss of a loved one, doing things that connect you to the deceased is important. Even though you are physically separated, you can still be close emotionally and existentially. Ways to feel closer to the person you lost include doing something to commemorate their death or donating to a charity they were passionate about. Even going for walks and talking to the person you lost can help you feel less dissociated and ease the grief you feel.
7. Honestly Share With Close Friends & Family
Sometimes, people feel pressure to candy-coat the truth of how much they are struggling with grief and anxiety. Focusing on being honest about how you are feeling, as opposed to saying the usual “I’m fine” or “I’m doing well”, will let other people know you are struggling and enable them to support you. Being open with everyone may not be helpful, but be open with the people who you know care about you and have the ability to help. Being honest and vulnerable is not a weakness, and asking for help is the bravest thing you can do.
Would You Like to Have Less Anxiety?
Anxiety is treatable with therapy. BetterHelp has over 30,000 licensed therapists who provide convenient and affordable online therapy. BetterHelp starts at $65 per week. Take a free online assessment and get matched with the right therapist for you.
8. Talk About Other Things Than Just How You Feel
Talking about other things can give your mind a break as well as remind you of the other parts of life that are not all-encompassed by the grief experience. Talking about upcoming events, goals you want to accomplish, or other relationships in your life are great ways to remind yourself that there are other things to focus on and put energy into. If you cannot think of other things to talk about, you can try asking people how they are doing and what they have going on..
9. Seek Spiritual Support
Death and loss can be spiritual and existential issues for many. Talking to or meeting with a spiritual director, advisor, or leader can help you make sense of loss and yourself in new ways, especially if you have a spiritual background already or want to understand the deceased’s spiritual background. If your spirituality is faith-based, seeking a faith-based counselor who specializes in grief and loss can be especially helpful.
Treatment for Grief & Anxiety
It is important to remind yourself that grief and anxiety are entirely treatable through therapy and, at times, medication. When beginning therapy for anxiety and grief, you and your therapist should discuss what therapy requires (work, emotional capacity, availability, finances) and what you can realistically do in order to get the most out of your therapy experiences.
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Effective treatment options for grief-related anxiety include:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): ACT for anxiety can help with grief-related anxiety by increasing a person’s sense of psychological flexibility around the loss. An ACT therapist can help a person identify and commit to living through core values despite experiences of anxiety and grief related to the loss.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT for anxiety can help with grief-related anxiety by increasing a person’s ability to understand the relationship between negative thoughts, anxiety, and avoidance behaviors. A CBT therapist can help someone challenge their negative thought patterns that lead to feelings of anxiety, which in turn may increase positive behaviors of coping with grief, like seeking support and engaging in activities again.
- Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT): DBT for anxiety can help with grief-related anxiety by coaching a person on mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance life skills. A DBT therapist can help someone with grief-related anxiety to master tolerating feelings of discomfort from their anxiety and to utilize anxiety regulation strategies to decrease the intensity of the emotion.
- Narrative Therapy (NT): Narrative Therapy may help with grief-related anxiety by helping a person situate their story of loss about a loved one. A narrative therapist can help a person explore their preferred narrative of their loved one outside of their feelings of anxiety.
- EMDR Therapy: EMDR for anxiety may be a helpful therapy choice for someone with grief-related anxiety who has suffered a traumatic or unexpected loss. EMDR may help someone resolve feelings of grief-related anxiety through bilateral stimulation techniques and re-processing core memories of the traumatic loss.
- Art and music therapy: Art and music therapy for anxiety can help with grief-related anxiety by giving the person an expressive outlet for anxious thoughts and emotions. Art and music therapy can especially help someone who enjoys non-verbal processing of their anxiety and grief rather than traditional forms of talk therapy.
- Medication: If grief and anxiety are particularly intense or last for a long time, it may be time to consider medications for anxiety and/or medications for depression. When considering medication, it is important to find a psychiatrist who specializes in grief and also to ensure that the medication is used in combination with therapy.
In My Experience
Additional Resources
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Anxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health issues in the world. To find the best online therapy for anxiety, we reviewed over 50 providers. Our evaluation focused on their geographic coverage area, cost, convenience, extra features, and more. Our top recommendations are based on more than three years of research and over 250 hours of hands-on testing. Read on to see our top picks for the best online anxiety counseling platforms.
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Choosing Therapy strives to provide our readers with mental health content that is accurate and actionable. We have high standards for what can be cited within our articles. Acceptable sources include government agencies, universities and colleges, scholarly journals, industry and professional associations, and other high-integrity sources of mental health journalism. Learn more by reviewing our full editorial policy.
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O’Connor M. F. (2019). Grief: A Brief History of Research on How Body, Mind, and Brain Adapt. Psychosomatic medicine, 81(8), 731–738. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000717
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Robinaugh, D. J., McNally, R. J., LeBlanc, N. J., Pentel, K. Z., Schwarz, N. R., Shah, R. M., Nadal-Vicens, M. F., Moore, C. W., Marques, L., Bui, E., & Simon, N. M. (2014). Anxiety sensitivity in bereaved adults with and without complicated grief. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 202(8), 620–622. https://doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0000000000000171
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American Psychological Association. (2018). Disenfranchised grief. In APA Dictionary. https://dictionary.apa.org/disenfranchised-grief
We regularly update the articles on ChoosingTherapy.com to ensure we continue to reflect scientific consensus on the topics we cover, to incorporate new research into our articles, and to better answer our audience’s questions. When our content undergoes a significant revision, we summarize the changes that were made and the date on which they occurred. We also record the authors and medical reviewers who contributed to previous versions of the article. Read more about our editorial policies here.
Author: Grayson Wallen, MA, LPC (No Change)
Medical Reviewer: Heidi Moawad, MD (No Change)
Primary Changes: Added sections titled “Can Grief Cause Anxiety?”, “5 Stages of Grief & Anxiety”, and “Effective Treatment Options for Grief & Anxiety”. New content written by Christina Canuto, LMFT-A, and medically reviewed by Kristen Fuller, MD. Fact-checked and edited for improved readability and clarity.
Author: Grayson Wallen, MA, LPC
Reviewer: Heidi Moawad, MD
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