The death of a loved one, their cremation services in Washington Crossing, PA, and the subsequent grief will never be easy. However, there are ways you can help ease the pain and help yourself heal. Use these ideas to soothe your pain and grief after the loss of a loved one.

To begin, you can seek help from a professional. Speaking with a mental health professional like therapist or counselor can be very helpful and comforting in a time of loss and grief. If you’re unsure if you need to speak with a professional, take a moment to be honest with yourself and your situation. There is no shame in getting help.

Be aware of clinical depression and watch out for complicated grief. It’s natural to feel depressed after a loss. In fact, many common symptoms of grief are the same as those of clinical depression. However, there is a difference between grief and clinical depression, and clinical depression does require professional help. You also need to take care of yourself. It’s easy to let self-care fall by the wayside when you’re grieving. However, you shouldn’t add physical ailments on top of your mental pain. Be on the watch for signs of clinical depression like your sadness does not subside over time, you feel hopeless or even suicidal, as though life will never get back to normal, you’ve pulled further and further away from your friends and family, and no grief-coping strategies seem to have worked for you. Complicated grief is when you’re unable to move on after a loss. While grief does not have a fixed duration, it does generally ease with time. Complicated grief, however, involves prolonged and painful symptoms that prevent you from accepting the loss and living a normal life again. If you feel you might have complicated grief, seek help from a professional.

Take care of yourself by eating regularly and healthfully, getting plenty of rest, exercising when you can, sharing your feelings with others, and allowing yourself to cry.

Don’t forget to seek support. Feeling of loneliness are very common after a loss. In fact, they’re natural. While its noble to make an effort to stand on your own during this difficult time, you don’t have to do it alone. In reality, its actually better to lean on others when you’re going through a loss. Try interacting with friends, family members, or other people in your community to remind yourself of the love, support, and positivity that surrounds you. If you can, fight the urged to isolate yourself. Even if you don’t want to talk about your grief, just spending time in silence with others can be helpful. If you’re not comfortable looking to friends or family for support, you can try a local support group.

Remember, just as no two people will grieve the same way, not all of these tips will help everyone with their grief. Do what works for you and what makes you feel healthy, happy, and that you’re moving towards healing.

Do you have more questions about grief or Washington Crossing, PA cremation services? J. Allen Hooper Funeral Chapel is here to help.

Everyone will experience grief at one time or another, generally after the loss of a loved one and a cremation service in Newtown, PA. However, sometimes people experience losses one right after another can lead to what is called “cumulative grief.”

Cumulative grief can occur when someone experiences more than one loss in a short period of time, causing the pain of each loss to compound each other into oftentimes overwhelming grief. The symptoms of cumulative grief include numbness, high blood pressure, sleeplessness, feeling overwhelmed, avoiding processing the losses, and processing one loss but not being able to process any others.

Here are fast facts about cumulative grief to help you understand this phenomenon and how you can get through it. To begin, it’s not shameful to seek help, especially since cumulative grief can affect your physical health. Finding professional help, like a therapist or counselor, can go a long way towards easing you through cumulative grief. Grief can devastate you emotionally, mentally, and physically. In fact, it can raise blood pressure, increase the risk of blood clots, and even alter the heart muscle to mimic the symptoms of a heart attack.

All grief, even cumulative grief, takes time to work through. Don’t try and rush through the feelings even if it hurts as this may just leave you feeling overwhelmed. Don’t try to avoid the feelings, either, as they will continue to build up and cause more pain in the long run. Age increases the risk of cumulative grief. As people get into their 70s, 80s, and 90s, they oftentimes find themselves experiencing more frequent loss of friends, family members, and other loved ones. Substance abuse can also increase the risk for cumulative grief.

Grief is also cyclical. Grief, especially cumulative grief, is cyclical, meaning that one day you might feel better, but then the next you start to feel terrible again. This doesn’t mean you’re regressing or not making progress, it’s just part of the grief experience. This cyclical nature also means that you can make room for joy and happiness within your grief journey. After all, being happy does not negate the love you had for your lost loved one. People that use drugs or alcohol to numb grief oftentimes don’t fully feel their losses, putting them at greater risk for cumulative grief when they stop using the drugs or alcohol. Multiple loses can also heighten feelings. The simple nature of cumulative grief is that it’s hard. How could feeling the pain of multiple losses not be? As tough as feeling the heightened emotions all at once, it’s better than ignoring the feelings until they become too much to bear.

Finally, cumulative grief isn’t just about death. While death is the most common cause of cumulative grief, it can also be caused by other losses like a change in friends, loss of identity, job loss, or a loss in future dreams or goals.

J. Allen Hooper Funeral Chapel is here to help if you want to learn more about grief or Newtown, PA cremation services. Call or visit us today to learn more about what we can do for you in your time of loss.