Help others
I would, pretty much unreservedly, recommend this one.
I have always done volunteer work. I have always had a number of different reasons, and benefits, for people to do volunteer work. Not only does it help the community, and specifically those in need, but it also helps the volunteer.
In terms of grief, it definitely helps to get some kind of distraction. A very good distraction is stopping thinking about *your* problems, and think about somebody *else's* problems. Specifically, trying to help somebody else with their problems. So, yes, help others. Volunteer. There are all kinds of opportunities to volunteer, and find out any way you can.
Sleep
Okay, this one is particularly stupid.
Grief is not a thing, but a syndrome. It is a collection of characteristics and symptoms. The symptoms will vary from person to person. Everyone grieves in their own way, as we keep on trying to tell people. There isn't any twelve-step plan, or five stage process, or timeline as to how long before you stop grieving. (You actually never do stop grieving.)
But there are symptoms and characteristics that are fairly common to most people who are grieving. And number one, the one that affects the most people, in the most cases, is sleep disturbance. This can be sleeping too much, in which case telling you to sleep is pretty stupid, or it may be the fact that you cannot get enough sleep, in which case telling people to sleep is pretty stupid.
Take time for short term distractions
Yes, once again, I would think that this is a pretty good one. Grief consumes you. Everybody thinks it shouldn't, but it does. Now you do have to do a certain amount of grief work. How much, and what type, depends on you, and can't be predicted or prescribed. But you do have to grieve, a certain amount, and at certain times. And that's okay, and in fact it's kind of required.
But pretty much any distraction that you can get, to keep from the grief consuming you completely, is a good thing. Anything that you can enjoy, that will distract you, go for it. Okay, maybe there are some provisos. Sometimes your grief, and the cognitive impairment that comes along with you, can make it really difficult to know what's good for you, and what, in fact, you actually do want. So, there are some distractions that can be damaging.
And, very often, you will find that the things that you used to enjoy, that gave you pleasure, that you used as distractions prior to your bereavement, just don't work anymore. I used to watch a lot of movies with Gloria. We really enjoyed them. After she died, I found that movies, and TV shows, were incredibly annoying. I still watch pretty much most of the movies that I watch in a setting, on the DVD player, that plays them about a third faster than they're supposed to be run. As a matter of fact, an awful lot of movies I play at with the subtitles on, and at the level one fast forward setting, which still allows me to read the subtitles. That runs the movies about in about half the time that they are supposed to run. I'm getting better, and things that I record on the TV I can generally accommodate at regular speed, since the settings on recording things off the TV don't allow me to do that fast forward stuff that I do with DVDs. But I don't get the same level of enjoyment and distraction out of movies as I used to.
I have read all my life, and enjoyed reading. I read pretty much everything, and an awful lot of different things for enjoyment. When Gloria died, I stopped reading. Not entirely. I still read a ton of stuff for research and learning. But I have to be really careful, these days, in terms of what I read for pleasure. Reading doesn't distract me anymore. It's very weird, because I read for my whole life, before I met Gloria, and while I was married to Gloria. So having this distraction not be available to me, or having to be really careful about what books I choose to read for pleasure and distraction, is really kind of bizarre.
So, yes, distract yourself. If you can.
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