HomeScienceWhy do we grieve? The surprising origin of the feeling

Why do we grieve? The surprising origin of the feeling


master mentalism tricks

The debilitating pain we sometimes feel at the loss of those we love is an evolutionary mystery. It could all come down to what happens in our childhoods

Humans 17 November 2021

By Catherine de Lange

Andrew Fox/Getty Images

“TIS better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” wrote Alfred Tennyson. Try telling that to someone in the throes of grief. “It’s so awful and so debilitating. People don’t eat and they don’t sleep, and they don’t function,” says Randolph Nesse at Arizona State University. Aside from the overwhelming emotional pain and sadness, grief is bad for our physical health too: those who have been recently bereaved are more likely to have health problems and even die in the weeks and months following a loss.

Evolution is famously all about survival (see “Why does evolution happen?”). So if grief is so debilitating that it leaves us unable to cope with life, why did we evolve this trait? “It doesn’t make that much sense for people to be so dramatically impaired for so long,” says Nesse.

One popular explanation starts with childhood. When we are young and vulnerable, forming strong attachments and staying close to others is a smart survival move. The reactions of children separated from their mothers – an intense “protest” phase, followed by a withdrawn period known as “despair” – are also seen in grieving adults. More recently, neuroimaging studies have backed up this idea. When grieving people think about the deceased, a reward centre in the brain associated with social bonding lights up.

The protest phase of loss is also characterised in behaviours like grieving people needing to find or see the body, thinking they have seen the deceased alive and even believing in ghosts.

This …

Read The Full Article Here


trick photography
Advertisingfutmillion

Popular posts

1976 review – Feminine revolutionary cinema
The Beasts review – Symmetrical, yet uneven
The Last of Us Season 1 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD
New Spider-Man 2 Figure Has Miles Morales Teaming Up With
‘Love Is Blind’ Season 4: Which Couples Are Still Together?
What Did You Think of ‘Shrinking’s Finale Twist?
Days of Our Lives Spoilers for the Week of 3-27-23:
Fire Country Season 1 Episode 17 Spoilers: Is Jake Innocent?
Swarm’s Creator and Star on Embracing the “Strange” for a
Gwen Stefani, Alanis Morissette & Shania Twain to Perform at
The Brian Shapiro Band Releases Third Studio Album
Melissa Grey, David Morneau, and Robert Kirkbride Releases New Album
Red Hair Is All the Rage — Here’s How To
I Just Tried Topshop Curve’s New Collection—Here’s My Honest Review
Not All Shoes and Trousers Go Together, But These Combinations
These $50 Old Navy Split-Hem Jeans Are Almost as Comfortable
BookBeat Review: Better than Scribd but Not Widely Accessible
Six Books That Dive Deep Into the Glitz and Glamour
One of the 19 Kids and Counting, Jinger Duggar Vuolo
Danger Lurks in the Shadows of New YA Fantasy Adventure
Wild Isles review: David Attenborough turns focus to UK and
Mysteriously Young ‘Peekaboo’ Galaxy Could Reveal Secrets of Early Universe
Most powerful solar storm in 6 years caused auroras all
Seawater split to produce ‘green’ hydrogen
AI Will Make Human Art More Valuable
Inside a Misfiring Government Data Machine
Senator Warner Wants US Spies to Justify a TikTok Ban
It’s Official: No More Crispr Babies—for Now