Thanatophobia is an intense fear of death or the dying process. Another name for this condition is “death anxiety.” You might be anxious about your own death or the death of someone you care about.
Death anxiety is a conscious or unconscious psychological state resulting from a defense mechanism that can be triggered when people feel threatened by death [4]. The North American Nursing Diagnosis Association defines death anxiety as a feeling of unsafety, anxiety, or fear related to death or near-death [5].
Death anxiety is thought to be at the root of other types of phobias. For example, a person's fear of snakes could relate to a concern of being bitten and dying. Or, someone with a fear of heights could be ultimately concerned with falling and dying.
It's possible for a specific event or experience to trigger thanatophobia. For instance, you may develop death anxiety if you: Have a traumatic experience related to death or dying. Lose a parent or loved one.
By middle age, one is exposed to the finality of life with death of parents, friends, and siblings. This being the period of highest death anxiety.
Key symptoms that a person may have a phobia of dying include: immediate fear or anxiety when thinking about dying or the process of dying. panic attacks that can cause dizziness, hot flushes, sweating, and a raised or irregular heart rate. avoidance of situations where thinking about death or dying may be necessary.
Talking therapies, behaviour therapies, and medication can help a person overcome their death anxiety. Some of the common therapies for fear of death include: Psychotherapy: Talking about your thoughts, feelings, and fears with a mental health professional can help you get to the root cause of the phobia.
This might be one reason why women tend to express higher death anxiety than men. This reason was also supported from literature [40]. Significant association of life satisfaction and death anxiety was hypothesized. This hypothesis was proved as a strong negative correlation (r = -.
Whilst death anxiety itself isn't a disorder, existential fears lie at the core of many anxiety and depressive disorders. This means that it is often linked to these kinds of mental health issues – Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in particular, which is characterised by frequent and uncontrollable worrying.
Fearing death also makes it harder for us to process grief. A recent study found that those who were afraid of death were more likely to have prolonged symptoms of grief after losing a loved one compared to those who had accepted death.
Next steps. Stress is unlikely to be fatal for most people, but prolonged exposure to stress can lead to mental and physical health problems, including death in severe cases. But dying from stress is unusual and is likely the result of a heart attack or another cardiovascular issue.
The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (DABDA). They apply when you are grieving for the death of a loved one as well as when you are facing a terminal diagnosis. These stages help describe the emotional process when facing these life-changing events.
Hoelter [7] proposed the following eight dimensions of death fear: (1) fear of the dying process, (2) fear of the dead, (3) fear of being destroyed, (4) fear for the death of significant others, (5) fear of the unknown, (6) fear of conscious death, (7) fear for body after death, and (8) fear of premature death.
Obsessive thoughts of death can come from anxiety as well as depression. They might include worrying that you or someone you love will die. These intrusive thoughts can start out as harmless passing thoughts, but we become fixated on them because they scare us.
Take a few deep breaths breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Now, imagine some of your less scary thoughts about death. Keep them as vivid as possible, feel the fear in your body, notice all the unpleasant sensations.
The reasons why death is scary are often related to the fears of the unknown, of non-existence, of eternal punishment, of the loss of control, and fear of what will happen to the people we love.
Whether you have an anxiety disorder or struggle with anxiety in general, anxiety can cause you to cry. Symptoms of anxiety can include having a sense of impending danger, feeling nervous, or having difficulty controlling worry. The act of crying can be a release of the build-up of previously explained symptoms.
While a fear of death sign can be a symptom of OCD, it's also a fear that affects many people from time to time, without necessarily indicating any greater mental health concern. It may also indicate other conditions, most commonly a specific phobia called thanatophobia.
Conversely, high death anxiety among elderly adults has been related to physical and psychological problems and low ego integrity (Fortner & Neimeyer, 1999). Research has shown that death anxiety is higher among the middle-aged, declines during later adulthood, and then stabilizes in old age (Fortner & Neimeyer, 1999).
We get better at this as we age. A 2000 meta-analysis found that fear of death grows in the first half of life, but by the time we hit the 61-to-87 age group, it recedes to a stable, manageable level.
As you age, it's only natural that you start to think more about your mortality. For some, this can be a difficult thing to come to terms with. But it's important to remember that everyone feels this way at some point in their lives. Which is why we advise you to talk about your fears with someone you trust.
Anxiety is common in people living with terminal illnesses. It is a natural response to stress but if it lasts a long time or is difficult to cope with, it can affect quality of life.