20 Jan 2012

The Risk of Death in Grief

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Lest you had any doubt that the brain is connected to the heart, here comes a study that links those two oh-so-important organs. People who were in the hospital because of a heart attack (also known as a “myocardial infarction”, or “MI”) were asked, among other things, whether a loved one had recently died. Of the 2000 people asked, 270 reported that someone they loved had died within the past six months, and 19 people had lost a loved one within the past day.

To put it another way, the first day of grief increased the risk of MI by more than twenty times what would be expected on a day without such sorrow.

Over the years I’ve heard of multiple loving couples who have died within a week of each other. I’ve heard people say: “He (or she) died of a broken heart.” The above study, published in the medical journal Circulation, supports those comments.

What I take away from this research is a renewed resolve to do what I can to support people who are grieving. Grief is a painful time. The way “life was supposed to be” has been altered, perhaps abruptly. I was walking purposefully down one path, thinking I could see my goal in the future, and now, suddenly, I am forced to walk down this other path, with no goal visible. The process of adjusting to this new reality is what we call grief. And it’s no fun.

Maybe all a grieving person needs is a wordless hug. I suspect that’s all that person needs.