How Routine Helped Me Cope With Grief After Losing My Sister to a Drug Overdose
On Wednesday, August 8, 2024, I woke up at 5 a.m. like I always did. Only on this morning, when I picked up my phone, I was faced with a text message from my mom that made my whole body go numb.
“Call me when you get this.”
The moment I read it, I knew in my gut my big sister, Melissa, had died.
She had struggled with drug addiction for years, cycling in and out of jail, and on that summer day, she passed away from a drug overdose.
Coping with grief after losing a sibling is something I had never imagined, and the shock left me feeling completely unmoored. Losing my sister to addiction brought a mix of grief, guilt, and even relief that some of her struggles had ended.
In the days, weeks, and months that followed, I discovered that routine was not just comforting. Routine became my lifeline. Maintaining small, structured healthy habits helped me navigate the overwhelming emotions and begin to heal.
In this article, I’ll share how routine became my critical grief coping strategy, along with actionable steps covering sleep, meals, movement, and daily habits that you can use if you’re grieving a sibling, parent, spouse, or loved one.
The Importance of Routine During Grief
Grief Disrupts Daily Life
When my sister died, I felt utterly disconnected from myself and the world around me. It was as if I were floating in no-man’s land, sometimes feeling nothing and other times feeling everything at once.
Coping with grief after losing a sibling or loved one can make life feel paused, even unfair, like the sun is still shining while your world has stopped.
Grief may feel paralyzing, but simple routines provided a lifeline. Here’s why maintaining them mattered for me.
Why Routine Became My Lifeline
I didn’t realize it at first, but the routines and hobbies I kept (even simple ones) were quietly helping me survive.
Routine became my key coping strategy, helping me process grief and rebuild a sense of normalcy.
There was part of me that used routine to push the hours along. Part of me used routine to feel a sense of normalcy, even for a few minutes or an hour. Even then, there was a part of me that criticized myself for doing “normal” things, as if I wasn’t “really grieving.”
Grief can impair focus, memory, and decision-making. When you are grieving, your brain and body are under enormous stress. Losing someone you love, whether a sibling, parent, spouse, or child, can disrupt your identity and your sense of normal life. Suddenly, even familiar patterns feel broken.
This is where routine becomes essential. Maintaining small, structured habits provides stability, supports emotional healing, and gently guides you through the unpredictability of grief.
Four Reasons to Keep a Structured Routine While You Grieve
Grief can make even the simplest tasks feel overwhelming. Cooking may seem like a chore. Exercise may feel impossible. Spending time in nature or engaging in hobbies may seem trivial.
Despite these challenges, maintaining a routine is one of the most effective ways to cope with grief after losing a sibling, parent, spouse, or child.
Here are four key reasons healthy routines matters during grief:
1. Routine Creates Stability in Chaos
Grief is unpredictable. Not only does everyone experience it differently, but it can vary greatly from day to day, or week to week. You may feel functional one day, and the next angry and too emotional to get out of your own way.
Ultimately, it’s a time of chaos and unpredictability that may leave you feeling like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. Will today be a “good” day? Or will today feel unbearable and full of tears?
Having a basic routine provides a steady framework when everything else feels unstable. Simple activities such as making a cup of tea, walking the dog, or doing a short household task can help anchor you in the present and give a sense of normalcy.
2. Routine Reduces Mental Strain and Decision Fatigue
Grief can impair memory, focus, and decision-making. It’s common to forget small tasks or feel “foggy.”
Decision fatigue is mental exhaustion from having to make too many choices. This can impair your ability to make quality decisions, and leading to making impulsive choices or avoiding decisions altogether.
Following a routine minimizes daily decision-making, allowing your brain to conserve energy for processing emotions. Repeating positive habits also helps your brain build healthier neural connections. Sticking to a “new normal” through structured actions supports emotional recovery and cognitive resilience.
3. Routine Supports Physical Health
Loss often disrupts sleep, your appetite, and energy levels. Anchoring your body with consistent sleep, meals, and movement helps regulate your nervous system.
Routines that support rest and nourishment reduce stress hormones and protect physical health. Even small habits like a regular bedtime or a short daily walk can prevent some of the physical consequences of prolonged grief.
4. Routine Encourages Small Steps Forward
When you’re grieving, it’s easy to feel stuck or paralyzed. Small, repeated habits, like going for a walk, cleaning, or preparing a meal, journaling, or reading, remind you that life continues.
These actions don’t erase grief, but they gently encourage movement forward. Routines can help you build momentum and restore self-confidence in your ability to function.
The Risk of Not Maintaining a Routine During Grief
Without a daily routine, grief can more easily lead to unhealthy habits, emotional overwhelm, and prolonged stress. Maintaining structure does not mean you’re avoiding feeling or healing. Instead, routines are the foundation to support healing.
Some of the risks of avoiding routines during grief are as follows:
1. Higher Risk of Health Issues
Abandoning all of your routines can have a cascading impact on your health resulting in depression and anxiety, worsening physical health, disrupted sleep, and poor eating habits
2. Loss of Control and Increased Isolation
Even though it may feel tempting to ruminate or remain in bed, without routine you’ll end up feeling more overwhelmed and increasingly isolated. The days may start to blur together, making it more tempting to withdraw from the world and others.
3. Risk of Delayed or Complicated Grief
Though it’s important to process and feel your emotions, this doesn’t mean you have to do so in a vacuum. While a routine won’t eliminate the pain, it can provide a framework for navigating it.
Four Practical Routine Tips to Cope with Grief
1. Get Moving: Exercise and Nature
The morning I learned my sister had died, I went for a run. I did not know what else to do with myself. It was the hardest run I have ever done. My breath felt heavy, and time seemed to stretch endlessly.
Exercise quickly became a lifeline. I already had a habit of running, but I adjusted it to match my grief. For me, this meant maybe running later in the day, but I’d still run.
Even a short walk, yoga session, or bike ride helped me release tension, regulate emotions, and maintain a small sense of normalcy.
Spending time outside amplified the benefits. Sunlight, fresh air, and nature helped me feel grounded and boosted my emotions during the hardest moments.
Tip: If running is not your thing, try any form of movement for 20–30 minutes. Walking, stretching, or gentle yoga can all help support emotional and physical well-being.
2. Stick to a Sleep Schedule
It’s no secret that grief will disrupt your sleep. For me, I dreaded going to bed because at night I felt a wave of emotions and cried myself to sleep most nights for the first few weeks.
Even still, maintaining a relatively normal sleep schedule (or trying to), as well as permitting myself to sleep in when possible, helped regulate my emotions and nerves.
I went to bed at roughly the same time each night and woke at the same time each morning. Allowing myself extra rest when needed helped, but avoiding oversleeping prevented the days from blurring together.
Consistency in sleep helped me maintain energy, focus, and a small sense of control over a life that otherwise felt out of control.
Tip: Even small sleep routines, like consistent bedtimes or short naps, can help regulate your nervous system and maintain energy during overwhelming grief.
3. Plan Your Meals
Grieving can reduce your appetite, or it can make you want to gorge in chocolate and pizza. For me, I know I can be an emotional eater, and therefore I knew I needed a plan to avoid unhealthy patterns.
Meal planning or prepping simple meals provided stability. Having healthy snacks ready for low-energy days helped me avoid impulsive eating and maintain nourishment. Accepting help from friends or family made it easier to stick to this routine.
I stuck to my normal routine of meal prepping at the start of each week. This simple routine helped to reduce decision fatigue and ensure I was getting appropriate nourishment.
Tip: Structure your meals for the week. Even simple planning can reduce stress and create a sense of predictability in an unpredictable time.
4. Return to Work, Slowly and Even Part-Time
This may be unpopular, but I felt that returning back to work (part-time at first) helped me to regain a sense of control during the first few weeks.
After my sister died, I took several days off. But, the following week I returned at half-speed.
I work from home, and have a very supportive boss, so this combination made it possible for me to grieve and still move (slowly) through my workday.
Work functioned as both a distraction and a gentle push forward. I did not aim to be fully productive immediately. The important part was moving, even slowly, through daily responsibilities.
Ultimately, you need to do what works best for you given your situation. For me, I felt as though staying out of work would be more detrimental to my progress and cause me unnecessary stress and anxiety.
Tip: Adjust your work schedule to fit your grief. Part-time or lighter tasks provide structure without overwhelm, and communicate with your boss about flexibility or using vacation/sick time if needed.
The Takeaway: Routine as a Grief Coping Strategy
Routine is not a cure for grief and it does not erase pain. However, maintaining small, structured habits such as movement, sleep, meals, and work can help you navigate the first weeks and months after losing a loved one.
If you’re grieving, consider building a framework for your day:
- Move your body, even briefly.
- Keep a basic sleep schedule.
- Plan meals or have nourishing foods ready.
- Maintain small connections to work or responsibilities.
These habits won’t remove grief, but they provide grounding, stability, and control when life feels unmanageable.
Remember, grief is personal and unpredictable. Routines aren’t supposed to mask pain or loss, but they help you to navigate the most challenging of times and provide you with structure to fall back on.
There’s no right way to grieve, but routine can be one of the gentlest ways to carry yourself through it.
Need a little daily help? Grief can feel overwhelming, but gentle daily habits can help you navigate the hardest days. Download my free Daily Grief Planner to guide your sleep, meals, movement, emotional check-ins, and self-care—small steps to help you feel grounded and supported every day.
