Why We Fear Death
Death anxiety, meaning, and the surprisingly quiet end most people actually face.
Posted December 23, 2025 | Reviewed by Margaret Foley
While the exact numbers are debatable, scientific research using validated psychometric tools—like the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale and the Templer Death Anxiety Scale—has been conducted in broad adult samples and consistently shows that death anxiety varies by age and gender . It tends to be higher in younger adults and shifts across older age groups, suggesting that fear of dying is not confined to illness or old age. It’s measurable across the general population.
As a hospice doctor, I encounter this fear every day—but not always where people expect.
At the bedside, I sit with patients who are actively dying. Outside of work, I field questions from friends, family members, and acquaintances who are very much alive. They ask me how to have a “good death.” More often, they ask how to avoid a bad one. They worry about pain. They worry about prolonged suffering. They worry about fear itself.
What often surprises them is that my answer runs counter to their expectations.
Yes, pain is common at the end of life—but it is also, in most cases, quite treatable. Modern palliative medicine is very good at alleviating physical suffering. Even more surprising to many people is this: Death, in reality, is usually quiet. It is often calm. It rarely resembles the dramatic, chaotic scenes we’ve absorbed from television and movies.
For many patients, dying is not a macabre event. It is a soft one.
That is not what most of us grew up anticipating.
In hospice, we often say that people tend to die the way they lived. And while that may sound poetic, it’s also clinically true. If you want to predict whether someone will die with peace or with turmoil, the best indicator is not their diagnosis. It’s their life.
Show me a patient who lived under constant stress , unresolved conflict, and a chronic sense of dissatisfaction, and I can make a reasonable guess about how their final days will unfold. In contrast, those who experience the quietest deaths are often people who lived with a sense of dignity, connection, and inner steadiness.
If you want a good death, you need a good life.
And the best way to build a good life is not through avoidance of death, but through the pursuit of meaning and purpose now.
Meaning and purpose are related, but they are not the same thing.
Meaning is retrospective. It’s the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. It’s how we understand our past and make sense of what we’ve lived through. Meaning is cognitive. It’s a journey toward “enough.”
Purpose, on the other hand, lives in the present. It’s made up of the activities we engage in that light us up. Purpose is what we do when we are being our most intentional selves. It’s not about legacy or productivity . It’s about alignment.
If you find yourself struggling with death anxiety, I believe there are a few practical steps you can take—not to eliminate fear entirely, but to loosen its grip.
First, examine the stories you tell yourself about yourself. Were you the hero? The victim? The caretaker ? The one who fell behind? These narratives matter because they shape how we imagine our future—and our ending. The goal is not to change the past, which is impossible, but to reinterpret it. Even the most painful experiences often contain resilience , courage, or growth that went unrecognized at the time.
Second, explore your regrets as if you were suddenly unlucky enough to become one of my hospice patients. What would you wish you had done differently? What did you never have the energy, courage, or time to pursue? What kept getting postponed? If some of those things are still possible, they can serve as anchors—clear signals pointing you toward purpose.
Third, make purpose part of your everyday life. Purpose does not need to be grand or impressive. It has no obligation to justify your existence or leave a mark on the world. Its only job is to fill you up. Purpose is a series of activities you enjoy, practiced regularly. When we engage in purpose, we often enter a state of flow—one in which we feel present, grounded, and fully ourselves.
Fourth, connect with other people. When you are engaged in purpose, you tend to show up as your best self. That makes connection easier. People are drawn to authenticity and vitality. Over time, these connections become your community: the people who walk alongside you, including, one day, at the end.
Death anxiety persists in human societies because death represents the ultimate loss of agency. We fear what we cannot control. And we have no control over death itself.
But by living well, we regain a sense of mastery—not over the timing of death, but over the meaning of our lives. We begin to understand that death is just a period at the end of a sentence. Life is the words, verbs, and adjectives that come before it. We may not know how long the sentence will be, but we have tremendous influence over what it expresses.
We get to craft our own message.
I have been present for countless deaths. In the vast majority, the room is calm. The atmosphere is subdued. The fear people imagine ahead of time is rarely what appears at the end.
I no longer fear death.
My hope is that, in time, you won’t either.
My prescription is simple.
Russac RJ, Gatliff C, Reece M, Spottswood D. Death anxiety across the adult years: an examination of age and gender effects. Death Stud. 2007 Jul;31(6):549-61. doi: 10.1080/07481180701356936. PMID: 17726829. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17726829/
Hedman, C., Fürst, P., Strang, P. et al. Pain prevalence and pain relief in end-of-life care – a national registry study. BMC Palliat Care 23, 171 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-024-01497-1
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Jordan Grumet, M.D., completed his degrees at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University. He is the author of The Purpose Code.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.