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Running head: DEATH ANXIETY
Death Anxiety
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1DEATH ANXIETY
Every individual is going to encounter stress and death, some day or the other. Stress
refers to the feeling of physical and emotional tension and it affects every human being each
and every day. Anxiety refers to a psychological and physiological state of unease and
nervousness. It is the natural body response to stress. It is a feeling of fear and apprehension
of what is to come and what one has to face. One of the very common anxieties among
individuals is of death anxiety. It is an anxiety that is caused by the thought of death in an
individual. According to Sinoff (2017), death anxiety is “a feeling of dread, apprehension or
solicitude (anxiety) when one thinks of the process of dying, or ceasing to ‘be”. However,
death, stress and the other emotional responses that a person feels toward such topics are
some of the very challenging issues to address. This paper is going to elaborate on death
anxiety and the various other factors that contribute to it. It shall shed light in various other
elements such as grieving, the different stages and patterns of grieving and the different
stages of dying. Furthermore, the paper shall assess the roles of age, gender and religiosity in
death anxiety within an individual.
What is Grief?
In death anxiety, one of the very natural responses to losing someone or something
among human beings is that of grief. While grieving, man feels the variety of emotions such
as loneliness or sadness and he or she might feel that for several different reasons.
Notwithstanding this fact, it is to state that grief is one of an integral part of the human
condition. Everyone human beings have lost or will have to lose someone they love beyond
all telling. One of the most difficult death to deal with by the human beings is that of the
death of a spouse or partner. It has also been found by Kaprio, Koskenvuo and Rita (1987)
that men have stronger reactions than women and that- the risk of death gets increased in the
months after the loss. Also, as per Jordanova et al. (2007), young people more possibly to
have stronger reactions, but not hugely so. The social nature of human beings makes them

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want to develop a bond and to create an attachment with the others. Grief is the price of all
those bonds and attachments of love that a person makes in his life. According to Rafaelli and
Sutton (2014), grief demands an expression of some very strong and powerful emotions. Man
always seek opportunities for telling and retelling the events that take place in his life and the
memories and stories that he has created. These are the reflections of their deep love for the
other person who have died or is going to die. Therefore, it is so hard when man finds none to
talk to, none to share his feelings and emotions.
Several patterns of grieving
There are several patterns of grief. Grief before the loss is the type of grief which a
person encounter for a bit longer period and in this case, both the person, the one who is ill
and the one who is the caregiver, recognise the possible fatal result and at the same time, both
of them try to deny that. According to Draper et al. (2018), this period is often called as the
time of anticipatory grieving. However, no matter how clear the result is and how prepared is
the one who believes he is, the actual death actually comes as a surprise. On the other hand,
the grief after the loss is somewhat different. The very first hour after the loss and even after
days or weeks after the death, people often recall later to be as a surprise. Such kind of
denying the painful information about the death temporarily is called the grief after the loss.
Everyone in their lifetime suffers from this stage. It is also to mention in this context that,
along with such a psychological distress, the grief of an individual disrupts the normal
physical functions of his body. Such an abrupt change in his or her pattern or way of living
that is caused by the absence of that significant person in their life, disrupts their brain as well
as their biological rhythms, particularly the hormonal, immune, nervous and the
cardiovascular systems. Such a psychological change results in common physical symptoms
of the grief. Like, for example, it can be impossible for the person to concentrate and keep his
or her attention in the work that he or she is doing or any other topic on which he or she is

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speaking or hearing. Along with these, the choking sensation as well as the sighing
respirations are some of the very common sensations that take place often in an individual
while they are crying. They might feel weak and fatigued. They find it difficult to sleep as
well. Also, many of the times, to this individuals, food seems to be tasteless or little taste.
Often, people also suffer from weight loss and illness in addition to being sad and quiet. It is
to note that it is the stage of super mental and physical disorganisation within an individual.
He might even try to distance himself from his peers and family members and might seek for
being alone. Such a complex picture persists for near about six weeks and sometimes, a year
as well. However, the other type of grief is the one that follows an unexpected death of a
near and dear one. Cancer is often regarded to be a disease in which individual often get
ample of time for preparing himself for the loss and to say the final Good-bye, but it is to note
that, it is not precisely the case. Sometimes, there is no time for either of the person who is
suffering from the very disease or their loved ones for accepting what is taking place in a
whirlwind of overwhelming medical issues and all the failed treatments. They just had to
accept what is going on as there is nothing in their hand to do.
The various different stages of grief and dying
As per Ross (2015), emotional responses among human beings resulted in a total of
five stages of grief. She has developed a five-stage model that signifies the five stage of death
in human beings. Those stages are- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
During the first stage of denial, the initial emotional response to the knowledge of impending
the death is denial. In this stage, the man cannot accept the fact that it is he who is suffering
from the situation, it is he who is going to die. As per her, this stage serves as a defence
mechanism. t is to state that denying the inevitable helps in easing the fearful thoughts and
anxiety. For instance, a woman who is diagnosed with cancer might be rigid that the results
of the test are incorrect and he thinks that he can beat the odds of the survival. The second

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stage is that of anger. Once the dying man accepts the fact that the diagnosis is correct, then
he becomes outraged. The feelings of resentment and rage might overcome this individual. In
this case, the anger might even be directed at the other individual, like his friends and family
members. At this stage, individuals ask "Why me?" However, Kubler-Ross has suggested
that the doctors and the friends and families of these individuals should not respond to their
anger and should keeping loving and supporting them.
The third stage of this model is bargaining. At this stage, the dying person might try
to bargain with his family members, the doctors and even the God. Here, he or she might ask
begs for their life. They might then try bargaining for the cure and for extra time to spend
with his or her family or for less pain. The next stage, i.e., the fourth stage is that of
depression. At this stage, the dying person has already accepted the fact that he is going to
die and now, he realised that his death is impending and there is no chance of bargaining.
Actually, at this stage, nothing is left to bargain. None can do anything. Hence, the person
becomes the victim of depression. He or she grieves for what has already lost and for the
impending separation from his or her loved ones. The last stage is of acceptance. According
to Kubler-Ross, this stage is a stage of peace and calm. The person at this stage successfully
develops a sense of peace as he accepted his fate. Also, in some cases, people in this stage
desire to be left alone (Ross, 2015). It is also to mention that physical pain and feeling at this
stage is virtually absent. It is the final resting stage before the death of the person.
Moreover, according to the theory of John Bowlby, there is four stage of grief,
namely- the numbness, yearning, disorganisation and reorganisation. The very first is that of
paralysis. It is to note that anaesthesia takes place within an individual in the early few days.
In this stage, he or she disbelief the fact that he or she is going to die and there is a sense of
unreality helplessness and confusion that works among them. The next stage is that of
yearning. At this stage, anger is widespread. People tend to blame other people for the death.

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Anxiety, guilt, frustration works within the individual, and they suffer from inadequate and
insufficient sleep. Kumar has compared such phenomenon to the retaliation of a child when
his caregiver leaves him. The third stage is that of disorganisation and despair. At this stage,
the loss is gradually accepted. People no longer engage and involve in searching for any
activity. However, they suffer from depression and tiredness. The fourth and the last stage is
of reorganisation. At this stage, people take control of their life once again. They show better
energy, start to have a better sleep and show less depressive symptoms.
What is Death anxiety?
It is to state that as per Schmidt and Kuijper (2015), there are a total of three types of
death anxiety. They are predatory death anxiety, predator death anxiety and existential death
anxiety. The predator death anxiety is the anxiety that takes place within an individual from
the horror or fear of being attacked and hurt by others. It is one of the most basic one and the
oldest of all the death anxieties as well. The unicellular organisms have receptors who arise
for reacting to the external dangers. They have self-protective mechanisms for increasing the
possibility of survival in the face of the physical and the chemical forms of hazards.
However, in the human beings, the predatory death anxiety takes place through a wide range
of dangerous situations which put them at risk and threatens their survival. With the same, it
also mobilises the adaptive resources of the individual and also leads to an active response,
i.e., the vigorous efforts for combating the dangers and the attempts for escaping the
dangerous and the threatening situation.
The next is the predator death anxiety. It is the form of stress which takes place when
any person harms the other, in mental or physical ways. Such a kind of death anxiety often
seems to encourage a broad range of decisions that are self-made as well as the actions that
are harmful by the perpetrator of harms to the other individuals.

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The third form of death anxiety is the existential death anxiety. It is to mention that
such type of death anxiety has its roots from the basic knowledge of the fact that the life of
human beings should bring to an end. With the same, it is also to state that this type of death
anxiety is referred to as the most potent form of death anxiety. According to most of the
scholars and researchers- "language has developed and created the root of the existential
death anxiety using behavioural and the communicative changes" (To & Chan, 2016). The
other factors comprise of the awareness of the difference between the self and the other
people as well as the potential to anticipate the near future.
The realization of the mortality of human beings takes place about 145,000 years ago.
In such a short period of time, human beings have fashioned one primary mechanism
employing that they undergo the existential death anxieties that this awareness has created-
the denial. This denial is affected by factors of a large variety of mental mechanisms as well
as some physical actions. Most of these psychological and physical actions went
unrecognised. While the denial could be adaptive in the restricted use of it, the excessive use
of it is more common and is also at the same time, emotionally costly. It is also to mention
that denial is the root cause of different actions that human beings take, like that of the
breaking of the laws and rules, violating the boundaries and frames and directing harmful
activities and violence against the other people. All these they do for gaining some
extraordinary power and wealth. Such pursuits are often being taken into actions by the
traumas that are related to the death of the near and the dear ones. With the same, more often,
they also result in some actions and activities which are damaging the self as well as the other
people.
Personal meaning of death

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It is the human beings that develop sense and then associate and link them with the
other objects and the events in their surrounding environment. In this way, they provoke the
emotions within a person. The people tend to create some personal meanings of death, and
this could accordingly be both positive and negative for the very person. It is to note that of in
case they are positive, then the outcomes of the meanings of those could be consoling. Like,
for instance, the ideas of the rippling effect that are left on the ones who are still alive. While
in other cases, when they are negative, they could lead to some emotional turmoil within an
individual. By certain meaning that a person has linked with death, the result would differ
accordingly, whether they are positive or negative meanings.
The Religiosity’s effect
The thought of dying or death within a person leads to a different level of anxiety for
different types of individuals by several factors. In the year 2010, several studies that
involved Muslim and Christian college students from the United States, Malaysia and Turkey
had found that their religiosity is linked positively with an increased fear about death. The
other studies on this subject have found that there is a powerful sense of religion in the life of
a person and that could be related to a low sense of anxiety towards their death. However,
there has been a relationship that was discovered between the death anxiety and the
religiosity. As per Kumar and Parashar (2015), death anxiety seems to be low in the people
who attend religious meetings and gathering on a regular basis. Also, it has been found that
there is an inverse relation between the death anxiety and the intrinsic religious motivation.
However, to sum up, it can be said that the more religious an individual is, the less he is
anxious about his death and the death of any of his near and dear ones. This is because he
might link the end with the other new beginning which is promised by most of the religions.
With the same, this study has also found that there is no role of gender on the death anxiety
that an individual suffers from.

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Moreover, the age of an individual does have some link with the death anxiety. It is at
the time of young adulthood when death anxiety starts to become prevalent in a person. It is
to note that during this period, the age range of the individual is from 20 to 40 years.
However, during the next level of his life, the adults who are middle-aged, like that of
between 40 to 64 years, the death anxiety reaches at its topmost level as compared to the
other people throughout the lifetime. With the same, the link in between the death anxiety
and the sex of an individual seems to have a solid relationship with each other. Several
studies have showed that the females tend to have more death anxiety as compared to the
males. Also, as per Wassertheil-Smoller et al. (2014), the death anxiety is higher in the
women as compared to the men. Several researchers believe the notion that the cultures and
the age of an individual can be a significant influencer in why women possess higher death
anxiety levels from the men.
Hence, from the above analysis, it is to state that different individual experience
different levels of stress and one of the widespread reactions to it is anxiety. The social nature
of human beings makes them want to develop a bond and to create an attachment with the
others. The death anxiety in a person is caused by the thought of death. Several theories and
models have described the various level of death and grief, and two of them are the Kubler
Ross's five-stage model of death and John Bowlby’s four-stage model of pain. It is also to
state that there is a significant relation in between the death anxiety, age and the sex of an
individual. Both and age are a strong influencer and contribute to the level of death anxiety.
While many people can handle grief well on their own but there are some who struggle hard
to do so. Hence, most of the people will benefit from using one or more of the sources of
support that are available.

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References:
Draper, E. J., Hillen, M. A., Moors, M., Ket, J. C., van Laarhoven, H. W., & Henselmans, I.
(2018). The relationship between physicians' death anxiety and medical
communication and decision-making: A systematic review. Patient education and
counselling.
Jordanova, V., Stewart, R., Goldberg, D. et al. (2007). Age variation in life events and their
relationship with common mental disorders in a national survey population. Social
Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 42, 611-616.
Kaprio, J., Koskenvuo, M. & Rita, H. (1987). Mortality after bereavement: A prospective
study of 95,647 widowed persons. American Journal of Public Health, 77, 283-287
Kumar, C. S., & Parashar, N. (2015). Death anxiety, coping and spirituality among cancer
patients. Indian Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(3), 291.
Rafaeli, A., & Sutton, R. I. (2014). The expression of emotion in organisational life.
Research in organisational behaviour, 11(1), 1-42.
Ross, E. K. (2015). Attitudes Toward Death and Dying, On Death and Dying, Elisabeth
Kübler Ross, 1973. In Disaster Prevention (pp. 77-93). Routledge.
Schmidt, K., & Kuijper, D. P. (2015). A “death trap” in the landscape of fear. Mammal
Research, 60(4), 275-284.

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Sinoff, G. (2017). thanatophobia (Death Anxiety) in the elderly: the Problem of the child’s
inability to Assess their Own Parent’s Death Anxiety state. Frontiers in medicine, 4,
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To, S. M., & Chan, W. C. H. (2016, August). Psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version
of the Existential Anxiety Questionnaire in a sample of Chinese adolescents living in
Hong Kong. In Child & Youth Care Forum (Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 487-503). Springer
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Wassertheil-Smoller, S., Arredondo, E. M., Cai, J., Castaneda, S. F., Choca, J. P., Gallo, L.
C., ... & Penedo, F. J. (2014). Depression, anxiety, antidepressant use, and
cardiovascular disease among Hispanic men and women of different national
backgrounds: results from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of
Latinos. Annals of epidemiology, 24(11), 822-830.