It’s different for everyone

It hurts when people go.

Nothing resonates more painfully in the mind. When someone close to us goes, we lose far more than their physical presence or the means of reaching them in the world outside. To the mind, a whole universe once reflected in that person has suddenly gone dark.

[…]

When the pain gets too sharp, what helps you keep your balance? Do you take refuge in the quiet of your own thoughts and images, or make yourself turn to the plain, everyday things that need doing?

Work.

[…]

What kind of work gives you the firmest hold on reality and steadies your mind most quickly? Is it something you do with your hands, or a problem that takes all your powers of thought?

It’s different for everyone.

Quite right. There couldn’t be a single prescription for this. Each of us has our own way of staying in touch with reality.

Working with your hands at a repetitive task or losing yourself in a difficult abstract problem might be just what one person needs to feel solid ground again. For someone else the same thing might do no good at all, or even do harm. What matters is finding what works for you, what keeps the balance between that endless world of images inside and the one hard, real world outside.