Why Your Sleep Changes In Grief, And The Pattern We Rarely Talk About
It turns out grief and sleep disruption are frequent bedfellows.
Many people can’t sleep after losing a parent, but I couldn’t stay awake.
This was weird to me as I’ve had insomnia for most of my life. Either struggling to get to sleep or stay asleep.
But after dad died, and after other losses I’ve had, I can’t seem to stay awake. Day or night.
Like wading through treacle, I couldn’t summon enough energy to get out of first gear for months.
My body heavy and my thoughts slow and clunky. My entire being dragged downward into the sofa or mattress.
Grief wasn’t keeping me awake but pulling me under.
Speaking to others who’d recently lost a parent, I realised they also struggled to sleep.
Racing thoughts. Panic. Worry. Loops of “what ifs” or “if onlys” cycled minute after minute.
And looking at the research, sleep disruption is one of the most common grief symptoms.
However, the research skews towards the insomnia, restless version.
There’s not much on hypersomnia, or oversleep, so I’ve done more digging to work out what’s going on.
Here’s how these sleep disruption patterns show up.
Sleep disruption after loss doesn’t follow one path
There isn’t just one way grief shows up in your sleep.
Some of you might follow a resilient path where sleep is disrupted for a bit and then settles into a normal rhythm again. It’s actually the most common pattern.
Others follow a recovery path, where the nights are rough at first, but gradually improves over months or even years.
And then there are some of you who might have a chronic sleep disruption path, where sleep issues linger for a long time after the acute loss has happened.
This is why one simple “fix” doesn’t work for everyone.
And more recent research shows that sleep disruption doesn’t just reflect grief. It can shape it, increasing both the intensity and how long it lasts.
The “restless, wired” version of sleep in grief (insomnia)
Losing a parent is one of the most stressful life experiences you’ll have.
When it happens, you might find yourself caught in a frustrating loop of deep exhaustion alongside an inability to fall or stay asleep.
My neighbour fell into this camp after she lost her dad at Christmas.
She was in a hyper-aroused state where her nervous system couldn’t stand down or rest.
Maybe it’s the shock of the loss, what was going on beforehand, or even personality traits. Or all these influences how long and intensely you stay in alert state.
Thinking habits like ruminating (so many “what ifs”), loss processing, and desperately trying to make sense of it becomes a problem your brain struggles to solve.
And yet, it keeps trying.
It bounces around trying to find logic in a confusing process. It tries to update maps of someone who was there but is now gone.
If you’ve got this sleeping pattern, you might notice:
Difficulty falling asleep despite intense exhaustion
Middle of the night waking up with racing thoughts
Early morning waking up but unable to get back to sleep
Rumination thinking loops about the loss and related changes, maybe about you, them, or something else
If you’re struggling with persistent grief, this intense stress response system gets stuck in the “on” position.
Hypervigilance and that “always alert” state, helps you scan for threats to keep you alive. It’s a key survival mechanism of the stress response.
But when you’re still scanning for the person who should be there but can’t find them, your mind and body take a hit.
The connection to your important people works against your ability to rest and recover from intense stress.
And it’s not the only way our sleep gets messed up.
The heavy, “walking-zombie” version of sleep in grief (hypersomnia)
What I discovered nosing around the research is how little there is about this other sleep disruption pattern.
The one I had with overwhelming fatigue and an increased sleep need that never felt satisfied.
I realised it wasn’t laziness or depression (though it might accompany depression if you have both).
And boy did I keep Googling it when I couldn’t focus and got bored of anything outside my weird thoughts.
But just because it’s a lesser-studied physiological response, it doesn’t mean it’s not normal.
If you’ve got this sleeping pattern, you might notice:
Difficulty staying awake and a constant pull towards sleep
Feeling exhausted even after long sleep or deep rest
Never feeling fully alert, even during the day
Sudden drops in energy meaning you need to lie down or nap right now
There might be a few things going on if you’ve got this exhausted sleep pattern.
From a biological perspective, grief and bereavement is physically expensive.
There’s a huge cognitive and metabolic load when you’re paying out these grief taxes from an overwhelmed body budget.
Making sense of loss and continuing your everyday activities on top of this needs a lot of resources.
And your brain gobbles up any energy it can find to essentially restructure your new world reality after loss.
Other studies have found grief triggers body-wide inflammation and stress responses that present as deep fatigue.
If you’ve had “bereavement fatigue”, you know it isn’t just feeling tired, like after you’ve had a few late nights partying with pals.
It’s a bone-deep exhaustion that covers your whole being as you navigate the physiological impact of loss.
Sleep disruption is a normal response to loss, but it does get better
Many of you will experience one end or the other of sleep disruption. It can happen within the same week or even the same day.
I found I couldn’t sleep for a few days, especially after we buried dad. I kept thinking he’d be cold in the ground, and that I should go check on him, just in case.
But suddenly I couldn’t stay awake for more than a few hours at a stretch.
I wanted to face plant where I was and pass out from exhaustion.
Neither sleep pattern suggests you’re handling grief “wrong.” There’s no right way to grieve, and our minds and bodies do unusual things under extreme stress, sadness, and panic.
Grief and loss are one of the most intense versions of these.
So, these disruption patterns aren’t character flaws or signs of weakness.
It’s your body’s attempt to stabilise itself after a fundamental earthquake has shaken the ground beneath you, your identity, and your daily life.
It’s no small feat to rebuild yourself and keep doing the everyday stuff on top of this.
Whether you’ve got insomnia or hypersomnia, realise it’s a normal, physiological response to loss.
And yeah, it’s bloody annoying and sometimes scary. But your body isn’t betraying you, so sprinkle in some self-compassion if you feel frustration or fear creeping in.
I had to relearn talking to myself as a kind friend would and lean away from self-criticism.
From my personal experience and working with coaching clients, beating up a stressed mind and body with more stress rarely works.
And from the longer-term studies, sleep quality does improve for most bereaved people.
It might take you longer, or maybe you need to put in specific effort, like cognitive behavioural-based practices, but sleep can and does get better.
Don’t lose hope if you aren’t there just yet.
A small and quiet sleep check-in to try tonight
Of course, check with your GP if things are troubling or confusing, but you don’t have to jump straight to sleep aids or fixes to get a sense of what’s going on.
Try this simple reflection as you prepare for bed to understand your sleep pattern right now:
“Does this feel like my system is wired, or wiped out?”
Noticing is the first step. You don’t need to fix anything right now. Just work out which way your sleep pendulum is swinging tonight.
The goal here isn’t to force normal sleep patterns immediately after loss. That’s often impossible.
It’s to work with your body rather than against it. And recognise these disruptions are part of your grief process rather than a separate problem to solve.
Key takeaways
Grief affects sleep in opposite ways, from stubborn insomnia to overwhelming fatigue. Both patterns are normal physiological responses to loss.
But sleep disruption during grief isn’t a coping failure, but your body attempting to process enormous change. And most of you will recover with better sleep over time.
When you notice whether your system feels “wired” or “wiped out” on any given night, you have a useful data point.
You can choose to work with rather than against your body’s current needs.
It’s one of the most compassionate gifts to give yourself when everything seems bleak.
P.S. What sleep pattern shows up for you after grief and loss? Let me know in the comments or hit reply.