How to Move and Breathe Through Grief and Trauma

When you’re living with grief, loss or trauma, it’s tempting to distract yourself and ignore how you feel. But healing and thriving — not just surviving a traumatic event — requires purposeful action. Even when you’re hurting, you have the power to face your feelings, redirect your thoughts and calm your body.

Mindful practices and breathing techniques can help you regulate your “fight, flight or freeze” response to stress.

“Grieving is a very stressful state that includes emotions like despair, anger and fear. Mindful movement allows these stressful emotions to coexist with peaceful, focused attention — which gradually reduces the pain and pressure and releases us from its grip,” says Deborah Jones Weiss, Ph.D., investigator and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.

“Mindfulness techniques have many health benefits and contribute to overall well-being,” she says. “Extensive research has shown that these practices can be used to reduce chronic pain, improve sleep and enhance the immune system.” According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, “Practicing mindfulness-based stress reduction was associated with a significant reduction in blood pressure.”

What is mindful movement? How does it differ from exercise?

“When we exercise, we may become highly aware of pain or fatigue and try to shut that out,” Dr. Jones Weiss says. On the other hand, “mindful movements encourage us to be aware of our body and to simply be with and accept its experiences, rather than avoiding them.”

When envisioning “mindful movements,” you may think of yoga and tai chi.

These tried-and-true practices synchronize the breath with controlled movements. Purposeful activities help focus your thoughts on something neutral (like the breath, an object and the sensations of the body moving through and holding simple postures). This can lower your heart rate and slow down your breathing, calming both the body and the mind. Some people prefer meditative walking, swimming or running based on the same idea.

Other types of movement-based mindfulness practices can also accomplish this.

“In fact, making a cup of tea, like the Japanese Tea Ceremony, is a great example,” Dr. Jones Weiss says. “It brings the attention fully to movement, feeling the earth under the foot. The release of individual elements of the body moves the mind from distraction to attention.” This is what it means to “feel grounded” and “be in the present moment.” It’s the opposite of feeling overwhelmed, panicked and disoriented.

You can also center your mind with mundane activities like washing the dishes. “This can be mindful and peaceful as you connect with each dish instead of getting the job out of the way as quickly as possible,” she says. “As you pick up a dish, you also connect with the breath. Become aware of the mind as it wanders and bring it back to the dish and the breath. That’s peaceful.”

“Trauma-informed” practices like guided yoga with an experienced teacher can encourage you to stay present and feel your emotions as they arise rather than fleeing from intense or unwanted feelings.

Dr. Jones Weiss’s team partnered with Mary Keel from Yoga4Change to host Healing the Heart: Navigating Grief and Loss, a workshop designed to help attendees reduce stress and reconnect with the body in a safe space as they learn to manage the grieving process using gentle, trauma-informed, chair-based yoga, mindful movement and meditation. This event combines information on processing negative emotions through movement and mindfulness techniques to promote emotional and physical well-being.

Participating in a beginner-level activity like this does not require experience with yoga, so it’s a welcoming and unintimidating introduction to mindfulness practices. “The postures are not complicated,” Dr. Jones Weiss says. “The focus is on the trust that develops between the teacher and the student. Participants strive to feel the yoga practice and poses and then to integrate the experiences and poses while breathing and maintaining awareness. They are fully present, which is the opposite of running away.

“Research on trauma-informed yoga has found that it reduces anxiety, depression and trauma symptoms, and helps with resiliency,” she says. “It also teaches the practitioner to be aware of their body and to experience sensations without fear. Of course, it helps with sleep, too.”

Other mindful breathing practices require stillness.

“I have seen many people with very challenging situations spend a quiet hour in guided meditation and describe themselves as feeling great afterward,” Dr. Jones Weiss says. “People who meditate regularly, focusing on the breath (which is always handy) and engage in practices like mindful journaling have been shown to develop healthy habits as they slow down and increase their awareness of things like overeating or becoming sedentary.”

Think you’re too busy for this? Or, you can’t focus?

Start small, Dr. Jones Weiss says. “All you really need is your breath.”

• Step into your bedroom, bathroom or closet.
• Sit on a chair, stool or a folded towel on the floor.
• Close the door.
• For three minutes, focus on your breath. Set a timer on your phone so you can avoid thinking about the passing of time.
• Use the box-breathing technique to help slow and pace your breathing. In your mind, count to four as you inhale through your nose. Then, hold your breath for four silent beats. Then exhale through your mouth as you silently count to four again. Hold your breath to the count of four. Repeat.
• Pay attention to the sensations in your hands, feet and limbs to feel more present in your body (and break the cycle of ruminating thoughts). Feel your body supported by the chair or the floor.

If your mind wanders and you forget what you’re trying to do, don’t get frustrated with yourself. Gently bring your focus back to your breath and body. It’s okay if this happens repeatedly. This is why mindfulness is a practice. It will get easier over time.

If it helps you calm down and focus, you can listen to soft atmospheric music (without lyrics), rainforest sounds, binaural beats or recordings of repetitive sounds like ocean waves, rainfall or a moving train. All of these are available on YouTube and meditation and calming apps.

Remember, you are not alone.

Even though loss and grief are natural, universal experiences, “people often feel alone with their grief and find that others actually try to avoid their sadness” because they don’t know what to do or say to make it better, Dr. Jones Weiss says. “We decided to hold our yoga event to stimulate community support for each other.”

Around the world, you can attend a community-based mediation gathering by yourself or with a friend. “Having a friend along is a great way to get important social support at the same time,” Dr. Jones Weiss says.

With continued practice, you can quickly shift into a focused, meditative state whenever you want to feel calm and centered. This practice can be your secret weapon to fight negative self-talk, unwanted repetitive thoughts and stress-induced insomnia.

If you are thinking of harming yourself or need a professional to speak with about your anxiety, depression, grief and/or trauma, help is available.

To make an appointment with psychiatry specialists at the University of Miami Health System, call 305-284-5511. The UHealth Counseling Center is available at 1-800-273 8255.

National resources:

U.S. Suicide Hotline: dial 988

National Alliance on Mental Illness: text 741-741

Dana Kantrowitz is a writer for UHealth’s news service.

Tags: complicated grief, deep breathing, Dr. Deborah Jones Weiss, inhale and exhale, practice mindful breathing