Grief attacks can strike at any time. They might be precipitated by something that evokes memories of a loved one, says Robert Neimeyer, director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition in Oregon and Lee’s co-author. But more commonly, Neimeyer says, they arise unexpectedly during quieter times at home: “Something regarding the loss just comes to us and — boom — the floodgates open.”

Grief attacks are especially concerning, Neimeyer says, if they put someone in physical danger (for example if someone experienced one while driving) or if the grief attacks last too long, fail to decrease over time or interfere with a person’s ability to function in daily life.

In less severe cases, while grief attacks can be difficult and unpleasant in the moment, they generally pass quickly and can even have some positive benefits.

How can grief attacks be a good thing?

Therese A Rando, a clinical psychologist at the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Loss in Warwick, Rhode Island, says grief attacks were a common and potentially therapeutic part of the grief process.

If you have been suppressing your grief over a loved one’s death, for example, a grief attack could make you face “the reality that they are gone,” Rando says. And if a grief attack brings back memories of a loved one, it might prompt you to reflect upon different aspects of that loss. For example, if parents are coming upon the year their child would have graduated from high school, they might need to mourn that milestone.

Rando, who lost her parents when she was a teenager, says that she hasn’t had a grief attack in decades, but has occasionally experienced surges of grief without panic symptoms. Last December, while listening to Judy Garland sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” she broke down in tears thinking of her parents.

It felt cathartic to have “a moment of real sadness for the fact that I miss these two extraordinary people who I was robbed of so young,” she says. “You never totally get over a loss.”

What are some coping strategies?

Dealing with a grief attack is similar in some ways to addressing a panic attack, experts say. Breathing slowly from the belly can help. So can repetitive physical movements like stomping your feet.

Linita E Mathew, a guidance counsellor in Calgary, Alberta, who has written two books about grief, says she had grief attacks frequently after her father died nine years ago.

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“I would have to run to the washroom because I thought I was going to vomit at any second,” she says. Holding her hands under cold running water helped.

“My eyes would shift back and forth,” she says, “like my eyeballs were trembling or shaking.” Later, she discovered that if she focused on a picture of her father, her eyes would steady.

Given that grief attacks can be connected with certain triggers like a loved one’s belongings, it’s also important to develop coping skills that gradually expose us to those items, so that their power diminishes, Neimeyer says.

And oftentimes, he added, we need to find ways to continue showing our love for those who have died, even in their absence.

The goal is not to move on, “but to find a way of holding on differently,” he says.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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