What is Pet Loss?

There is no clear line in what qualifies as pet loss. Some medical associations call it a pet loss if a person has simply lost their pet, and some others include the trauma and grief that follows.

In this post, we focus on the grief reaction that comes after losing a pet companion.

The Mental Consequences of a Pet Loss

According to research, the following are considered the effects of pet loss:

・Sudden and unstoppable tears
・Incapable of making progress due to self-hate
・Whitnessing shadows of their lost pet
・Prolonged anxiety and negativity
・Easily panicked
・Nightmares

Additionally to the above points, pet loss is known to cause physical symptoms such as loss of appetite and dizziness. Generally speaking, pet loss can create mental states extremely similar to depression and should be taken care of if symptoms prolong.

5 Ways to Cope With Pet Loss

Some suggest that getting a new animal would help with pet loss, but for some people, owning a new pet too soon still feels like a betrayal to their lost love. The most important step in overcoming the sadness is to first fully accept the loss of your beloved pet.

As a way to completely accept the death of your pet, you can try the following methods:

1. Cry Your Heart Out

To face pet loss, you must first accept the death of your pet. Tears may fall when you think of your lost companion, but don’t hold it in and let it all out. Crying relaxes the sympathetic nerves so that the parasympathetic nerves can become dominant. This lifts mental stress.

Tears will shift the brain back to normal from a stress-controlled state, and this will allow a calm transition into acceptance of death.

2. Share Your Sadness With Others Who Feel the Same Way

Even if you logically understand that your pet has passed away, sometimes it’s hard to accept it emotionally. In these circumstances, it helps to talk to others who are also going through similar experiences.

Typically, when a person passes away, there are funerals with family and friends that gather to mourn and reflect on past memories together. This helps people understand death, but with animals, a ceremony like humans are rare.

We recommend that you connect online with others who are also experiencing pet loss. Whether it be a group or an individual, share your sad feelings and ideas on how to overcome them. It’s encouraging to know that you’re not alone in the grieving process and sharing experiences will allow your heart to process the emotional aspects of the death.

3. Keep Yourself Intentionally Busy

One way to cope is by keeping yourself intentionally busy. It can be mentally tolling to constantly deal with sadness.

Whether professional or private, shift your focus to other activities. This can temporarily alleviate some of the stress felt through pet loss. Eventually, you’ll feel free enough from sadness to calmly accept the passing of your pet.

4. Create Closure

Once you’re able to accept death, we recommend that you organize your memories with them. Your pet’s toys, toiletry, and cage will always trigger a flashback in memories unexpectedly. This can bring back the negative symptoms of pet loss.

Try to organize and let go of some objects, frame certain memories that you cherish, or make a keepsake box to store special items that are dear to you. This will help you move on to a post-death new phase.

A pet memorial ceremony is also very helpful. You can plant a tree or place a gravestone where you buried your pet’s ashes as a way for closure.

5. Seek Pet Loss Counseling

If nothing works, in the end, you can always seek professional help. It can be a general therapist, but we recommend a Pet Loss Counselor that specializes in these matters. They can empathize deeply about your loss as they understand specific difficulties a person goes through during the loss.

If the issues you face are hard to share with people in real life, an AI can hear you without any restrictions on time schedule, or location. It’s an affordable alternative counseling method with a free trial period. Give it a try!
→SELF MIND

Move Forward With All The Great Memories

In some cases, people suffer through pet loss for more than 6 months. It’s a sign that you’ve poured your heart into caring for your pet, so there’s no need to try and ‘get over.’ Instead, we hope that you can embrace their departure and learn how to move forward with all the great memories you’ve created together!

References:

KIMURA, Y., KANAI, K., ITOH, N., CHIKAZAWA, S., HORI, Y., HOSHI, F., KAWABATA, H., & MAEZAWA, M. (2016). A Longitudinal Study of Mental Illness among Bereaved Pet Owners. Journal of Veterinary Epidemiology, 20(1), 59–65. https://doi.org/10.2743/jve.20.59

Kimura, Y. (2009). GriefReaction and Care Associated with Pet Loss in Japan. Japanese Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, 49(5), 357–362. https://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110007161315

Nikaido, C., Ando, T., & Kajiwara, H. (2019). The past and future of pet loss study in Japan: A literature review. Journal of the College of Education, Yokohama National University. The Social Sciences, 2, 11–22. https://doi.org/10.18880/00012307

The post The Hardships of Pet Loss: 5 Ways To Cope With Grief appeared first on SELF MIND.

What is the Mental Subtraction Strategy?

The Mental Subtraction strategy is a simple self care practice when you’re looking for a way to reduce stress. You imagine a positive memory, something happy or fun that you experienced, and imagine that it never happened. This helps your positive memories stand out.

The positive memory can be anything from a little happy incident to a life-changing event. If you still can’t think of anything, it can be something as basic as being alive. Here are some simple examples:

• I passed the test.
• I found a dollar on the ground.
• I’m in a new budding relationship.
• The weather was great today.

Take notice of the small happiness that occurred in your life and imagine it never happened. Repeating this exercise for 3~5 minutes a day, over the course of 2 weeks, becomes effective in stress relief. Give it a try by first starting at 3 minutes a day for self care and to reduce your daily stress levels.

The Pain of Loss Feels Greater Than Our Gains

The Mental Subtraction strategy is effective because humans are more affected by the pain of losing something over the happiness of gaining something. Experts call this the “Loss Aversion Bias”. It’s pretty much similar to the sunk cost fallacy. As an example, when we have the options of a 90% chance of receiving $10, or a 100% chance of receiving $9, people tend to chose the latter. Both have almost the same expected value, but humans naturally want to avoid the 10% possibility of loss.

The idea behind the Mental Subtraction strategy follows this same logic. We imagine a positive event from the past, and by pretending it never happened, we feel a strong sense of sadness for its loss. This helps us recognize the importance of this positive event, creating a sense of gratitude towards the memory.

An experiment with students at the University of Virginia found that many of the subjects who practiced the Mental Subtraction strategy became more resilient to stress, and continued to maintain a positive mood even a month after the study. Although it can be difficult to get used to, the Mental Subtraction strategy can be a meaningful method of self care to relieve and reduce stress for people whose negative moods tend to linger.

Coping Strategies to Reduce Stress

The Mental Subtraction strategy can be practiced without any special tools, so you can try it out anytime, anywhere. Give it a try the next time you feel a little down or find yourself in a negative mood.

The key to taking care of stress quickly is to have some form of self care or stress relief method on hand. Having a coping mechanism on hand, such as the Mental Subtraction strategy, keeps our mental health in check. This is just one of the many easy stress-care techniques you can try in caring for yourself. Figure out what works for you and get into the habit of practicing. One of the keys to living a healthy and happy life is to properly cope with stress, and finding effective ways to reduce stress.

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If you’re looking for more tips on how to care for your mental health, check out some of our past blog posts!

Image：Unsplash
Reference：
Minkyung Koo, Sara B. Algoe, Timothy D. Wilson, and Daniel T. Gilbert
「It’s a Wonderful Life: Mentally Subtracting Positive Events Improves People’s Affective States, Contrary to Their Affective Forecasts」

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