New Delhi, Aug 19
"The fear of death follows
from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any
time," said American author and humourist Mark Twain.
Is your fear of losing life becoming a kill-joy?
If
we listen to experts, more and more Indians are finding themselves in
the grip of death anxiety owing to several socio-psychological factors
that force them to remain in a morbid or abnormal fear of one's
mortality.
Either a traumatic past, a sudden life-saving surgery,
a near-death experience or a serious medical illness has put many
people - including youngsters - at the risk of developing
"thanatophobia" - an intense and irrational fear of death. The phobia,
experts emphasise, can lead people's brains to become ultra-sensitive to
negative events that have nothing to do with their lives.
"A
traumatic incidence in the past increases the fear of death. The
uncertainty of death or the imagination of life after death based on
some religious beliefs can also make some people ultra-anxious,"
explains Dr Sunil Mittal, leading psychiatrist and director of Cosmos
Institute of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences in New Delhi.
Some
people are readily affected by external factors they have no control
on. "It is difficult to say whether thanatophobia results in ultra
sensitivity or ultra sensitivity results in fear of death. But they are
definitely related," Dr Mittal told IANS.
According to Dr
Hrishikesh Pai, president of the Indian Society for Assisted
Reproduction (ISAR), people who are constantly thinking about how to
fulfil life's mundane duties may be the first to be stung by the fear of
death.
"Also, a single traumatic incident in the past may hamper
emotional memory forever in some people, leaving them in a constant
panic situation of losing their life," Pai, a world-famous infertility
specialist, told IANS.
The fear of death is now being seen in younger people too.
"Excessive
fear easily occurs in those who tend to be anxious in general. The
young child with an anxious temperament may 'take' more readily to being
fearful. A family history of anxiety may also predispose a person to
being excessively fearful," explains Dr Vishal Sawant, consultant
psychiatrist at Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital in Mumbai.
Biological
risk factors such as temperament or family history, when combined with
negative life experiences, can render a person more vulnerable to
fearing death, he notes.
Lately, scientists have shown what happens inside our brain when we think our life may be over.
Led
by Baycrest Health Sciences' Rotman Research Institute at University of
Toronto, a recent study found that while more mundane experiences tend
to fade with the passage of time, trauma leaves a lasting memory trace.
According
to the study, a single traumatic incident can heighten memories and
skew perceptions even years after the event. "It can possibly make
people more sensitive to other negative life experiences," the authors
noted.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a known mental
health condition that is triggered by a terrifying event - either
experiencing it or witnessing it.
Symptoms may include
flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable
thoughts about the event. These could also include severe anxiety of
death.
The basis of any fear is anxiety "which will affect the
overall functioning of a person and how they look at each event in their
lives," Dr. Sawant emphasises.
When the mind goes out of control, it relates everything and every incident to the worst possible scenario.
"Something
as simple as heading out to buy milk turns into an internal battle of
visualising one getting hit by a bus or being run over," explains
eminent cardiologist Dr Lekha Pathak, also the executive president of
the Heart Foundation of India.
Our brain is responsible for our actions and emotions. The emotional part is handled by Amygdala, a small part in our brain.
When
the person relives the traumatic event or incident, this part becomes
highly active. "When a trauma is not resolved, the sense of fear and
helplessness takes over, setting the stage for the fear of death," Dr
Mittal elaborates.
A loss of a life inherently does evoke a natural human reaction of sadness, shock, grief or concern.
"However,
when such feelings become excessive and are irrational, they become a
phobia which would, in turn, have an adverse impact on the individual's
quality of life," says Dr Samir Parikh, director (mental health and
behavioural science) at Fortis Hospital.
The key to overcome death anxiety lies in cleansing out the "negative energy" that one has accumulated over the years.
"Fear
of death can be dissolved through meditation and yoga asanas. It
destroys the anxiety by giving us access to the vibrant core of our
being which is completely independent of the body," Deepak Jha, a new
Delhi-based yoga expert, told IANS.
Breathing exercises and deep-relaxation techniques have a soothing effect on the nervous system.
If symptoms persist, go see a specialist.
"Define
your stress and fears to put things in perspective. You will see some
fears are so ridiculous that they just sap your energy for no reason,"
the experts advise.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at [email protected])
