Why Is Grief So Dang Exhausting? Understanding the Invisible Work of Grief

If you’ve ever been surprised by just how exhausted grief can make you feel, you’re not imagining it.

You may not have done anything particularly strenuous that day. Maybe you went to work, answered a few emails, made dinner, or even had a relatively “good” day. And yet, by evening, you feel completely depleted.

Grief can be exhausting in a way that feels different from ordinary tiredness.

Part of the reason may be found in the way our brains respond to loss.

Grief doesn’t happen only when you’re thinking about your loss

When we lose someone we love, our brain doesn’t simply register the loss once and move on.

Our brains are constantly learning patterns, routines, and expectations.

We learn when someone will come home. We learn where they usually sit. We learn the sounds they make, the routines we share, and the little things we can count on throughout the day.

When that person dies, those expectations don't immediately disappear.

Instead, we can find ourselves repeatedly encountering the reality that they are no longer there.

You wake up and remember.

You reach for something and remember.

You walk into a room and notice the empty space.

You make coffee and remember the mornings you shared.

You hear a familiar sound and, for a moment, expect them to be there.

Then comes the realization: They're not.

These moments can be incredibly small, but they happen again and again.

And that’s a lot for your brain.

Your brain is learning a world that has changed

Researcher and neuroscientist Mary-Frances O'Connor has described grief as involving a process of learning and updating our expectations after the death of someone we are attached to.

We may consciously understand that our loved one has died, while another part of our brain continues to expect the world to be the way it was.

This can help explain why grief can sometimes feel so strange.

You can know intellectually that someone is gone and still instinctively expect to see them.

The same can happen after the loss of a companion animal.

Your brain has spent years learning their presence as part of your everyday environment.

Their bowl was always in a certain place.

You knew what their footsteps sounded like.

You knew when they wanted to go outside.

You knew where they liked to sleep.

You may have reached for the leash without thinking, filled a food bowl automatically, or looked toward their favourite spot on the couch.

These weren't things you had to consciously remember doing. They were simply part of life.

After a loss, those ordinary routines can become repeated reminders of what has changed.

The invisible work of grief

This is one reason I think it can be helpful to think about grief as work.

Not work in the sense that you need to “work through” your grief as quickly as possible.

Rather, your brain and your whole system are gradually adapting to a reality that is profoundly different from the one you knew.

And you're doing that while still living your life.

You're going to work.

You're answering messages.

You're grocery shopping.

You're taking care of your home.

You're having conversations.

You're making decisions.

From the outside, it may look like you're doing all the same things you were doing before.

But internally, there may be a great deal happening that isn't visible to anyone else.

You may be moving between moments of connection to your memories, waves of emotion, reminders of your loss, changes in routine, and the ongoing process of adjusting to the absence of someone who was woven into your life.

No wonder you feel tired.

Pet loss can make this especially complicated

For many people, companion animals are present throughout some of the most ordinary and intimate parts of daily life.

They may be there when you wake up, when you come home, while you work, while you eat, while you relax, and when you go to bed.

They can be a source of comfort, companionship, routine, physical affection, and emotional safety.

So when they die, you're not only missing the relationship itself.

You're also suddenly living inside a day that has been rearranged.

The empty bed.

The unused leash.

The quiet house.

The food that no longer needs to be prepared.

The absence of a warm body beside you.

The person who used to greet you when you came through the door.

The little rituals that once happened without thought.

These moments can catch you off guard because they are reminders embedded in ordinary life.

And sometimes that can make the exhaustion of grief feel completely disproportionate to what you have actually done that day.

You don't have to earn your rest

If you're grieving and finding yourself more tired than usual, it may be worth offering yourself some compassion rather than criticism.

You don't need to prove that you're exhausted.

You don't need to have accomplished enough to deserve rest.

And you don't need to compare your capacity now with what you could do before your loss.

Your body and brain are responding to a significant change.

Some days you may have more capacity.

Some days you may have very little.

That doesn't mean you're moving backward.

It means you're grieving.

And grief isn't a straight line.

Your exhaustion doesn't mean you're doing grief wrong

One of the hardest things about grief is that so much of it is invisible.

Other people may see you functioning and assume you're doing okay.

You may even look at your own day and wonder why you're so tired when you “barely did anything.”

But grief doesn't always announce itself through tears.

Sometimes it looks like fatigue.

Sometimes it looks like difficulty concentrating.

Sometimes it looks like needing more quiet, more sleep, or more time alone.

Sometimes it looks like moving through your day on autopilot.

And sometimes it simply looks like being completely worn out.

If that's where you are right now, you don't necessarily need to push yourself harder.

You may need to recognize how much your system is already carrying.

Grief is the ongoing process of learning to live in a world that has changed because someone you love is no longer physically in it.

That takes time.

And sometimes, it takes a lot of energy.

So if you're tired, be gentle with yourself.

You aren't necessarily doing too little. You may be carrying more than anyone can see.