If grieving didn’t make the present unbearable enough, the insomnia that often comes with grief certainly doesn’t help. The period following the death of a loved one is a perfect storm that dysregulates all the systems that control our sleep. First, our system is pumping out a combination of adrenaline and cortisol in response to the stress of bereavement, enough to keep anyone awake as though they were drinking extra coffee throughout the day. Combine that with all the changes in what insomnia researchers call the zeitgebers, which means “time givers.” Zeitgebers are all the environmental
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