The Importance of Mental and Emotional Balance

Emotional and Mental Strength Needed to Handle the Death of People Close to You

Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking discusses cognitive loss after trauma

After reading the book "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, I wasn't sure whether to be glad she
had the mental acuity to reflect so deeply on the loss of her husband, or whether to feel sorry for her for being so emotionally dependent on one person during her whole life. Didion is a New Yorker Magazine essayist who documented the various levels of pain and loss she experienced after the death of her husband.

One of the themes of the book is the cognitive effects of experiencing a trauma such as the death of a loved one. Didion states that the brain simply stops functioning for a fairly long period of time while you heal from the emotional loss. Another thing she points out in the book is how death-averse we are as a culture, and that  current social norms do not condone mourning - essential as it is to overcome a close person's death. Learning to cope with the repercussions of death is something that everyone over 40 experiences sooner or later, and the greater mental & emotional balance we have in our lives, the better we will be equipped to handle it.