Help with death anxiety

hi i use to suffer with this for years when i was younger it made me have bad anxiety i was always at the doctors .. i still have this abit now but i habe syptoms to what i think is up with me .. always checking my self for certain illness and make my self believe i have them ... i started working as a nurse years ago but i got over the fear of death after dealing with patients .. they say confront the fear to get over it .. but i do have illness fear now its horrible as i have been unwell for 10 weeks with severe anxiety contant worry x

I went through the same thing. I know exactly what you’re talking about. I had to make a decision whether I wanted to live thinking about the end of my life or actually live each day finding joy and being grateful. The best thing I did was acknowledge to myself that this life is a journey. We were not meant to be here forever. to tell you the truth, I would not want to be here forever. My faith has really helped me a lot. If I didn’t have it I would probably be stressed out all the time.

I found so much peace and learned to take one day at a time because the future right now does not exist. We only exist in this moment. So I wake up in the morning with an attitude of gratefulness for my life, my family, the beauty of nature, and on and on.

I take it all in!

don’t waste a single moment worrying about the future it’s just not worth it and you will waste your life on that. fear is a liar. Don’t let it consume you. don’t miss out on the beauty of your life.

One other thing that I do that really helped a lot was doing things for other people. It’s such a great feeling when you know you make a difference for somebody. It could be even a little thing that you do. it took the focus off of myself and on to other people. When we have a purpose in life, we are much happier and don’t focus on negative things.

In other words, stay busy and active!

Hi Emily,

Yes, I have had this anxiety at various points in my life. It's a very natural fear.

I don't know how old you are but I think there are certain "stages" in life where this is worse.

With age comes a sort of acceptance (that isn't to say that I don't sometimes get that sudden pang of fear that feels like a kick in the stomach when I think that one day I will be dead), but now I don't allow myself to think about it, I don't give in to the thought, I just say to myself NO, and I get up and do something to distract my mind.

Also, now that I'm almost 50 my thought is more to try and pack-in as much as possible in life before it's too late.

I have wasted such a big part of my life being afraid of things that:

a) never happened

b) will happen and can't be changed

My advice would be to not allow yourself to overthink it as it is not worth it, no amount of thinking about it will change it. Say NO to yourself and give someone a call or go to do some exercise or something to distract your brain.

Good luck x

thank you all for your replies. whenever i get the anxiety I go back to this page your comments.

I used to be very scared of death myself and this show on netflix named surviving death has helped me a lot. It is a documentary about people sharing their near death experiences.

I too have experienced this fear of dying for me at times it has been a paralyzing fear. I'm 51 years old and have had this for at least 5 years. It's like being stuck between being afraid to live and die. I wish I could give you something more but I have not yet conquered this part of my anxiety. But I do try doing things to distract myself from having those intrusive thoughts. I just started writing ✍ a blog and this is merely a personal blog that I probably am the only one to read. I practice gratitude and prayer, listen to meditations on YouTube, play games on my tablet, watch a funny show. Whatever I need to do to distract myself from over thinking or being hyper aware of body sensations.