It has been said that the capacity to contemplate our own deaths is a distinguishing feature of human beings in comparison to other animals. However, the fact that we can think about this does not mean that we like or want to do so.
I recently did a poll of psychology graduate students and found that nearly half of them had feelings of fear or discomfort when they think about death. For many of us, the mere thought of death can send us quickly towards our most unhelpful distractions and avoidance tactics. In this way, we continue to give it power and perpetuate the notion of death as a taboo topic.
As common as it is to be uncomfortable with death, not all of us have what would be called death anxiety. Death anxiety is a more pronounced fear of death that brings up symptoms of anxiety, such as physiological hyperarousal, intrusive worry, and avoidance. Some people even experience a death phobia that can become debilitating, and there has been some research on “death desensitization” treatment to help people much the same way as other phobia treatments works: by learning to approach the feared topic in a controlled manner, supervised by a therapist, until the fear is extinguished.
Some people believe that religious beliefs and practices are a way of coping with death-related fears. Interestingly, Wen (2012) did a study looking at religiosity and death anxiety among college students. It was found that there is a curvilinear relationship between these two variables, with death anxiety lower among the nonreligious and highly religious and higher among those in an intermediate group. This suggests that there may be a middle group of people with uncertain or ambivalent religious beliefs who are most at risk for death anxiety. Individuals with more certainty—be it in the direction of nonbelief or strong belief—seem to be more protected.
Many people are surprised to discover that death anxiety is high among individuals in emerging adulthood compared with other age groups. A recent study offered a strong case as to why this might be (Pashak, Justice, Burns, Lahar, Handal, and Creech, 2018), explaining that the years between about 18 to 29 are marked by instability in a variety of areas, such as relationships, employment, location of residence, and financial security. Further, individuals tend to experience lower self-esteem during this period compared to other times in the lifespan.
Taken together, this set of risk factors seems to predispose emerging adults to higher general anxiety, as well as higher death anxiety. Perhaps the instability of this time and a hurried wish to find security and stability, paired with a longing to achieve something meaningful with one’s adult life and the fear of dying before getting to do so, make for a perfect storm that increases death anxiety.
In contrast, older adults experience less death anxiety than you would think. As individuals age, it seems that there is a movement towards acceptance of death as an inevitable endpoint of life. People begin to cultivate an appreciation for the life goals they have achieved, willingness to accept what will be unfulfilled or unfinished, and over time bolster a sense of having led a meaningful life by their own definition.
Further, as people experience their friends and loved ones preparing for death and then dying, it may begin to feel less scary and even developmentally appropriate to do so. While there are certainly exceptions to this at the individual level, some research has shown that death anxiety is lower in older adults compared to their younger counterparts (Handal, Peri, and Pashak, 2015).
If you are saddled with death anxiety, it may be useful to consider the ways in which contemplation of death can be salutary and try to move your thinking to a more empowered place. Death need not be feared and can offer a perspective that may be helpful and even inspiring. Steve Jobs famously stated, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” Death awareness may indeed help us develop a larger vantage point that puts our present difficulties in perspective. It may even inspire us to use our time well during life.
Seneca encouraged meditation on death, which is also a common practice in some Buddhist traditions. Memento mori—visual reminders of death, such as a skull or carved bone—were kept by Renaissance elites as reminders of the inevitability of death. In modern America, we seem to have death around us frequently, but it is often gruesome, sensational, or violent, such as what we see in graphic video games or movies.
We have to seek out more human and realistic depictions, which are often more challenging to find, but rewarding when we do. When we engage with death on a more realistic and mundane level, we may find it is less to be feared and more to be revered. Instead of our enemy, we might find it can become a teacher.
References
Handal, P. J., Peri, A., & Pashak, T. J. (2015). Calibration of the Langner symptom survey for the college population. Current Psychology, 34, 389–400.
Pashak, T.J., Justice, M.D., Burns, B.R. et al. Separation of Church and Trait: Trait Death Anxiety is Universal, Distressing, and Unbuffered by Worldview in Emerging Adults. Journal of Religion and Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0623-1
Weh, Y. (2012). Religiosity and Death Anxiety of College Students. The Journal of Human Resource and 98 Adult Learning, 8(2), 98-106.
