When we’re grieving, our nervous system takes the biggest hit.  It's in a constant state of internal “fight or flight” that leaves us feeling frayed and exhausted. We search for solutions to find peace, but sometimes the most profound relief is the vibration we can make with our own body… humming. It may sound strange, but it’s far more than a simple vocal exercise; it’s more like an internal massage for your parasympathetic nervous system.

Picture your nervous system as a stringed instrument. Over time, the stress of life, and especially the weight of loss can cause the strings to get out of tune. 

When you hum, you create a gentle, steady frequency that ripples through your chest and throat. These physical vibrations provide a sensory “anchor.” By stimulating the Vagus nerve, which acts as the major highway connecting your brain to your body, you're essentially sending an important signal to your internal landscape that it’s safe to shift from “survival mode” into “rest and digest.”

It’s a quiet, rhythmic feedback loop that works like this:

VIBRATION/SELF-SOOTHING: The humming creates steady vibration and sound that many people find regulating, like giving the body a predictable rhythm when emotions feel intense.

REGULATION: That rhythm often encourages slower breathing and longer, steadier exhalations, which can shift the body toward a calmer, more regulated state.

CLARITY: When the nervous system feels less on alert, it can be easier to focus, process what’s happening, and carry grief with a bit more steadiness over time.

What I like about this is it's easy to do. Close your eyes, take a slow breath in, and then hum a steady, low “mmm” as you exhale. Pay attention to the vibration, especially around your lips and chest. Continue for as long as it feels comfortable. You can use it as a gentle transition between journaling sessions, after a hard moment, or at the end of the day. I do it in the morning before getting out of bed and several times throughout the day because it helps me feel better. 

While processing loss, we often feel disconnected from our bodies. Humming can be a no-stress, gentle way to reconnect. The steady vibration and sound help your body to shift from intense alarm toward regulation. Even in the midst of sorrow, it can remind your system that moments of rhythm and rest are still possible.

Everyone has 24 hours in a day. But for someone who's grieving, those 24 hours can feel surreal. How do I even begin to explain this? It's like living in a parallel universe where time doesn't follow the same rules. Sometimes the minutes and hours seem to stretch on forever, while other times they slip through your fingers like sand.

I remember those first few days after losing my husband and then, two years later, my son. Each second felt like an eternity, yet the days blurred together in a haze of death certificates, burial arrangements, banking, insurance, pain, fear, and confusion. 

Maybe you, too, have felt this roller coaster of emotions. One minute, you find yourself laughing at a funny memory, and the next, you're overwhelmed by a wave of sadness that threatens to pull you under.

Sometimes I feel guilty for having moments of joy or laughter. But then I remind myself that it's okay to feel the full range of emotions. I've learned that grief isn't linear. It’s more like a messy, tangled ball of yarn.

The thing is, when you're grieving, your 24 hours aren't just about going through the motions of daily life. They're about learning to navigate your new reality. One where the physical framework of a cherished relationship has vanished.

Gone are the days when I would drive by where my son worked and smile when I saw his truck parked in his favorite spot. For the first year after he died, I avoided that place altogether. 

And I never realized just how much of my daily routine revolved around my husband until he was gone. Now, every task is a reminder of his absence, and I have to recognize, honor, and move through each one of these 'secondary' losses. Things like different cooking habits, taking care of the yard, car maintenance, and trips to Home Depot for faucet aerators and furnace filters. And the day I finally had to remove his LinkedIn profile because I was overwhelmed, trying to keep up with all of the emails, informing his connections that he had passed away. 

So, what can you do with your 24 hours when you're grieving? The answer is simple: prioritize whatever you need to do to heal.

Some days, that might mean curling up in your bed and sobbing. Other days, it means getting out of the house, going for a walk or taking yourself out to lunch. There's no right or wrong approach to grief. Give yourself permission to do it your way. Be patient, be kind to yourself, and most importantly, be present.

Grief may change the way we experience time, but, as I've learned, it doesn’t have to define our entire existence. We’ll keep taking it one day, one hour, one moment at a time. After all, what else can we do?

Someone once said that a home isn’t just four walls and a roof; it’s two eyes and a heartbeat. When that’s gone, only silence remains. 

The silence began for me after my husband died. Just 30 days after that, our dog died. And then… two years later, my adult son died. Through all that, I learned that it’s not the kind of silence you can fill with music, TV, social media scrolling, or other people. It feels thick. The kind that settles into corners like dust, that makes your walk down the hallway feel longer. It turns the sound of your own footsteps into something almost intrusive.

Before your loss, silence probably felt restful. It was a pause between conversations, a lull before the next laugh. Now it’s a presence that carries weight. It follows you from room to room, sitting down across from you at the dinner table. Lying next to you in bed.

You notice the small absences most. A key in the lock that no longer turns. A voice calling your name from another room. The shuffle of slippers on hardwood. The click of a dog’s nails on the kitchen floor. The house remembers those sounds. It played them back to you at first, in those early weeks, when you’d swear you heard something. 

There’s no solution to this silence. You can’t drown it out, because it’s not a sound. It’s a shape left behind by everything that used to fill it. But maybe you don’t have to fight it. Maybe you can learn to sit inside it, not as in a vacuum, but as a kind of presence itself. Not the presence of what’s gone, but the residue of love that once moved through those rooms.

The silence isn’t really empty. It’s full of everything that can’t be said anymore. The specific sounds of a home that you won't hear anymore—their key in the lock, the voice calling your name, the padding of feet on the floor. It’s full of that kind of absence which is its own kind of heaviness.

But heaviness, carried long enough, can become familiar. Almost like a companion. It settles next to you, not as an intruder, but as a quiet witness to the love that was real. It doesn’t mean the pain goes away. It just means you learn to breathe in a room where the air has changed.

You learn that the silence itself is more of a presence. And you learn to move within it, not because it isn’t heavy, but because you’ve stopped fighting its weight. That's when you know you’re adjusting to living alongside it.

There’s a kind of tiredness that doesn’t come from running a marathon or sleepless nights. It’s quieter than that. Sneakier. It shows up as a heaviness behind your eyes, a knot in your gut, a bone-deep weariness that sleep doesn’t fix. It’s the exhaustion that comes from trying to be good enough at everything, all the time.

If you’re grieving, you know this tiredness well. Yet, you’re still showing up. You’re still answering emails, feeding the kids, showing up for friends, keeping the house from falling apart. You’re still performing "OK." But inside, your engine is running on fumes.

What It Looks Like When You’re Always “On”

In our culture, we’re told that “good enough” should be enough. But we live like it’s not. We strive to be:

• A competent employee who never drops the ball.
• A present friend who remembers birthdays and listens well.
• A reliable family member who doesn’t fall apart.
• A put-together person who looks like they have their life handled.

And when you’re grieving, that list gets even heavier. Now you’re also trying to:

• Process waves of grief without letting them derail your day.
• Answer “How are you?” with something that won’t make people uncomfortable.
• Keep a brave face when you feel like you’re crumbling.

That’s the quiet exhaustion: the effort of pretending you’re fine when you’re not.

Why This Kind of Tiredness Goes Unseen

This kind of tiredness is quiet because it’s invisible. Most people won’t notice that you’re running on empty. You’ve gotten good at smiling, at nodding, at saying “I’m okay” in a tone that sounds convincing. So, no one offers help, because no one sees how much you’re carrying.

And part of you might believe that if you just keep trying hard enough, if you just push through, the exhaustion will lift someday. But grief doesn’t work like that. Neither does constant striving.

The Grief Layer

For someone who’s grieving, this exhaustion has an extra story. You’re not just managing life—you’re managing loss. Every phone call, every morning routine, every interaction takes more energy than it used to. Your bandwidth is smaller, but the world still expects the same output from you.

It looks like:

• Forgetting simple things (where you put the keys or what you walked into the kitchen for).
• Feeling numb or disconnected during conversations.
• A short fuse or a flat response—either way, you don’t feel like yourself.
• Waking up tired after a full night’s sleep.
• Dreading even small social or professional obligations.
• Resenting people who don’t seem to understand why you can’t just “pull yourself together.”

That resentment? It's usually just sadness in disguise. You want to be seen. You want someone to say, “Hey, I know you’re not okay, and that matters.”

A Gentle Reminder

You don’t have to be excellent at everything while you’re grieving. In fact, you don’t have to be excellent at anything for a while. Survival is a full-time job. The quiet exhaustion is a signal, not a failure. It’s your body and soul telling you: You're carrying too much. Put something down.

Maybe that means letting the laundry pile up. Maybe it means saying “I can’t do this today” and meaning it. Maybe it means letting someone see you cry and not trying to hide it.

You’re not weak for being tired. You’re human. And the weight you’re carrying—loss, plus the pressure to be “good enough” on top of it—is heavier than most people know.

Let this be your permission: you don’t have to be good enough today. You just have to be here. And that is enough.