For most people, death is not a standard conversation topic. Once, at lunch, a friend began talking about her mother\u2019s death several years earlier. Her voice caught occasionally, but she spoke about it plainly \u2013 like a simple fact of life. As we talked, I noticed another friend was shifting uncomfortably in his seat; he didn\u2019t say much.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, I asked him what was wrong. \u201cI really don\u2019t like talking about death,\u201d he said, his hands twitching anxiously. \u201cI don\u2019t even like thinking about it. It freaks me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
His discomfort struck me as silly \u2013 and also the most normal thing in the world. We are all going to die, and so is everyone we know. So why be terrified? And how can you not be terrified?<\/p>\n
My friend is far from alone in his discomfort. \u201cWe live in grief-illiterate and grief-phobic societies,\u201d says Dr Lucy Hone, a resilience and grief researcher and author of the book How Will I Get Ever Through This?: A Practical Guide to Navigating Life\u2019s Toughest Times.<\/p>\n
Hone began researching grief over a decade ago, after the sudden death of her daughter, Abi. On our video call, she wears one of Abi\u2019s old hats, an orange and white beanie with polka dots and a big orange pouf on top. It\u2019s ridiculous, Hone says, but it makes her laugh.<\/p>\n
For someone who has experienced such intense loss and spends so much of her time talking to people about their grief, Hone is remarkably cheerful and bubbly. This is in part because of her work, she argues. Hone and several other experts I spoke with said that thinking and being around death was \u201clife-affirming<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n Below, experts share why so many of us are so scared of death, and how we can learn to get a little more comfortable with it.<\/p>\n Why we are so uncomfortable with death<\/p>\n Death disrupts the usual orientation of our lives, argues Dr Todd May, instructor of philosophy at Warren Wilson College.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in the west and elsewhere are forward-looking,\u201d May says. We do not just exist in the moment \u2013 we engage in projects and relationships that we see unfolding over time. \u201cThe thought of our lives ending violates this future orientation we all have,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n The typically western, individualistic approach to life affects how we feel about death, says Sister Ch\u0203n Tr\u00ec Nghi\u0207m, an Australian-born Zen Buddhist nun. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, \u201cthere is a strongly shared belief that God created individuals separate from each other \u2026 we have a certain lifespan, and we die at a certain time\u201d. This view causes fear and anxiety, argues Tr\u00ec Nghi\u0207m.<\/p>\n In the Buddhist tradition, beginnings and endings are far less defined. Take a question as simple as when you first began to exist: was it when you were born? The nine months you were in your mother\u2019s belly? When you were just a precursor cell within your unborn mother? \u201cIn Buddhism, we have always existed and there was no time when we didn\u2019t exist,\u201d says Tr\u00ec Nghi\u0207m. Seen through this lens, death is less of an ending and more of a continuation.<\/p>\n The idea of finitude can bruise our fragile egos, says Alua Arthur<\/a>, author and death doula. \u201cWe have no control at all, and that\u2019s very disquieting,\u201d she says. \u201cWe think we\u2019re infallible, and death reminds us how small we are, and that\u2019s uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n And the thought of death brings about big feelings that most people would prefer to avoid, says Dr Luyi Kathy Zhang, a hospice and palliative care doctor.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many of us are ill-equipped to deal with uncomfortable emotions, and death is probably one of the peak uncomfortable experiences,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is easier for us to say that death is an eventuality that we will deal with when it comes rather than to face the feelings now.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, dying increasingly happens out of sight, says Hone \u2013 in hospitals or care homes. But it wasn\u2019t always this way.<\/p>\n \u201cThroughout human history, we had death around us,\u201d Hone says. \u201cWe\u2019d care for the sick and dying at home, so we were forced to talk about it and think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n This shift accelerated in the mid-20th century. \u201cIn Boston in 1912, about two-thirds of residents died at home,\u201d the New York Times<\/a> reported in 2019. \u201cBy the 1950s, the majority of Americans died in hospitals and by the 1970s, at least two-thirds did.\u201d<\/p>\n Removed from our immediate surroundings, for many death became something more distant and abstract.<\/p>\n Why it is important to think about death<\/p>\n Not talking or thinking about death \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s not coming, it just means that you\u2019re going to be ill-prepared when it does come\u201d, says Arthur.<\/p>\n