how do people deal with a fear of death?

Answer 1

my husband doesn't understand it either he's like things are so much better on the other side ( i dont go to church) I dont believe it, the thought of not seeing the people i love my son, his kids his grand kids my friends never seeing them never being here its awful,.....its scary. BUT i try not to think about it i take things one day at a time and live everyday as the best day of my life. I do things w/ my family and my son.

Answer 2

It depends how old you are, and your situation.

If you're above 40 you're not really that far away from death, so you just have to accept it and get used to it.

If you're in a dangerous situation because of your neighborhood, your job, a disease, etc., then again, it is not unrealistic to be concerned. You have to make peace with it.

When you're younger you should still be cautious not to die unnecessarily, but it's pretty random. You could die at any time but you probably won't. If fear of death becomes morbid, takes over your life, leads you to avoid the things you shoudl be doing, you need to deal with it. I would read some books on the subject or see a counselor. It could very well be anxiety or fear of something else that gets expressed as a fear of death, so you have to find the root cause. Maybe a bad relationship, or self image problems, some bad memories.

Answer 3

I found the following from the web. I do not know if it will help or not. I don't think I fear death any more, I have just though about it and worked through it. It helps if you believe we are here for a purpose and there is an afterlife of some sort.


Generally, our fear of death is an unhealthy and unrealistic fear-we don't want to die, so we ignore the subject, deny it, or get morbidly obsessed by it and think that life is meaningless. However, right now we cannot do anything about dying, so there is no point fearing death itself. What kind of fear is useful?

A healthy fear of death would be the fear of dying unprepared, as this is a fear we can do something about, a danger we can avert. If we have this realistic fear, this sense of danger, we are encouraged to prepare for a peaceful and successful death and are also inspired to make the most of our very precious human life instead of wasting it.

This "sense of danger" inspires us to make preparations so that we are no longer in the danger we are in now, for example by practicing moral discipline, purifying our negative karma, and accumulating as much merit, or good karma, as possible.

We put on a seat belt out of a sense of danger of the unseen dangers of traffic on the road, and that seat belt protects us from going through the windshield. We can do nothing about other traffic, but we can do something about whether or not we go through the windscreen if someone crashes into us.

Similarly, we can do nothing about the fact of death, but we can seize control over how we prepare for death and how we die. Eventually, through Tantric spiritual practice, we can even attain a deathless body.

Answer 4

I don't think I have any fear of death, but I do have a level of anxiety about 'how I reach the Death stage.' I don't want the experience the pain we tend to associate with dieing (which of course, depends on how this stage is reached).

In '03 I underwent three lots of open heart(un-planned) surgery. But, I had little or no knowledge of these events as I was unconscious for the best part of three weeks.

I did occasionally surface, and in those times the result of the drugs used to kill any pain had psychotic effects which created 'some severe psychotic episodes'. I had both very interesting and VERY disturbing hallucinations.

PS: I had no 'White light at the end of the tunnel, or out of body experiences.'

PPS: Being sat on my backside for a whole month, some of those might have been a nice way to pass the tedium of the passage of time.

Sash.

Answer 5

I believe in God.

I believe that a creation that is as marvelous as human beings can't vanish from the earth without a transformation. I mean what a shame to just vanish. Any thing I love as much as I did my parents can't just vanish, they are there somewhere in another dimension with God.

I also believe there are things worse than death. I've seen a few in my life time. My sweet aunt afraid to put her feet down on the floor suffering from Alzheimers thinking she was back in her parents home. My friends mother living in a drug stupor because the cancer had ate so much of internal organs that the pain was unbearable.

Life is not fair, I don't understand that part. The only reason that I would fear death is that I would miss out on the memories of my family. I almost died a year ago in a car wreck and before the other car was about to hit me all that went through my brain is that I wouldn't get to see my unborn granddaughter. Every time I hold that child now I weep. Because God granted it.

Don't live your life in fear. Make some memories to take with you. You can lose everything as I did once but I learned the memories are the only thing that is truly yours to keep in life. If you stay worrying about things you can't control you wasted time you could have made a memory. And you never know when it could be your last chance.

Answer 6

1) luck 2) talking to other people 3) being with other people who are dying (No 3 is my mother's speciality.) 4) A religious belief may help some people. 5) Many people may not be afraid of death, so much as of the process of dying, which could be painful. To deal with this, I try to be healthy physically and healthy right now. 6) Interesting are happeing around us all the time. Look out, not in. Inside is an apparent vacuum, outside is other people.

Answer 7

I try to accept the fact that no matter what it is going to happen and as much as I or other people fear it, it is our destiny to die. Just like we are capable of experiencing pain and loss of a loved one and survive the painful heart breaking feelings and enjoy all the good times, I think i can learn a bit more everyday at accepting my death and that it is a natural part of life that i was created to face someday and in a way i will be able to "survive" the moments before I die and survive the times i may fear death.

Answer 8

I think a fear of death is probably a fear of the unknown,we can't picture what it will be like. When we are children we can't imagine ever being adult but because adults are all around us we know what to expect and therefore don't fear this next stage in our lives. Death is inevitable it is part of the circle of life but it is feared because no one knows what will happen to them when it occurs. Try not to fear it it is inevitable and we have to enjoy what time we have. I am much more scared about losing loved ones than dying myself.
If you are constantly thinking about death you could have obsessive compulsive thought disorder. Therapy or even medication can help.
Life is a journey we have to take enjoy!!!!!

Answer 9

Humans clearly have trouble thinking about death. This trouble is often invoked to explain behavior like delays in writing wills or buying life insurance, or interest in odd medical and religious beliefs. But the problem is far worse than most people imagine. Fear of death makes us spend fifteen percent of our wealth on medicine, from which we get little or no health benefit, while we neglect things like exercise, which offer large health benefits.

When the salience of death is increased, such as by standing next to a Mortuary, we tend to want to reward heros more and punish prostitutes more. We tend to favor more those who praise our religion and nation and those who criticize others. We become more reluctant to disrespect items like flags or crucifixes. We think we are better drivers, and that others agree with us more. We try harder to divert attention from our less popular features and group identifications. We believe more in the supernatural. People with high self-esteem are mostly immune to these effects.

Answer 10

Death is a normal part of life. If you believe in the afterlife, death is actually into the next life. The life beyond here is faaaaaar better than here; even the loftiest station in this plane of existence (physical world) isn't even a speck of dust in the lowest portion of Paradise. Death isn't scary, it's natural and beautiful. It's the beginning of a new and wonderful life, and is actually something to look forward to! Imagine, you'll get to see those who have passed before you. Death is not morbid at all, it's people who imagine it that way. I like to call it "passing" because the body dies, but the soul passes into the next life, it never dies, it lives forever, and is more alive after it passes from physical world into the next. "Passing" is beautiful, so please don't be afraid.

Of course, when it's our time to go, our survivors will miss us and grieve. However, they will see us again, so it's not a final separation, but a temporary necessity.

No worries. : ^)

Answer 11

No point in trying to convince someone there is no death, they will only truly believe when they find out for themselves. Have a ponder on this though. Big Bang 'theory'... then there's life infact there's YOU! So there was nothing, then, big bang and hey presto there's all that is... oh please... nothing comes from nothing, so it is far more likely that there has only ever been an always & always will be... death was but an idea/invention to ease the monotony of LIVING FOREVER. Well 'they' do say... ''no pain no gain''. As you become weary of this life, death will become a doorway... then its new adventures here we (i) come!!!