Death-positive trend
The Global Wellness Institute has identified an emerging trend within the wellness industry called the ‘death positive movement’. The new death wellness has been gaining popularity among different U.S. age groups, and it aims to help Americans emotionally embrace their mortality, let go of the fear and anxiety regarding death, and support individuals and families throughout the dying process.
Before Western medicine advanced, people were dying at homes, surrounded by loved ones. In the 21st century, many people die in cold environments experiencing clinical death. Today, the death-positive movement involves talks, events, workshops, dinner gatherings, and a completely new care community. For example, Reimagine End Of Life is San Francisco’s series of events that dives into the topic of death through arts, design, and performances. Death Over Dinner is a nonprofit that facilitated more than 200,000 diners by organizing shared meals and taking off death’s taboo status. Today, the End-Of-Life Doula Council is acknowledged at the academic level. There are professional certificate programs such as death doulas who, like birth doulas, are keeping people company as they die and ‘’honoring the wholeness of a person in their journey’’.
Our collective death anxiety has been keeping us from delaying and avoiding this very natural process and part of life. According to the WHO’s statistics, ‘’in 2020 there are 125 million people aged 80 years or older. By 2050, there will be almost this many living in China alone, and 434 million people in this age group worldwide’’. This means that the increased life expectancy will put pressure on how we are dealing with aging and, eventually, dying. Health systems will have to adjust and provide emotional and spiritual care so that death becomes more familiar. Nowadays, death has become a very disconnected process for many people and urbanization had a huge impact on loneliness and disconnection. In Japan, one in four people is over 65 and many lonely old and sick people die alone (there is an expression ‘’kodukoshi’’ or ‘’lonely death’’, where people’s bodies are not found for weeks).
The human desire to understand and explore the topic of death has been present for centuries in many disciplines: from art to philosophy. Religion has always been tightly linked to the question of death. But as the formal religious practices decline, some new rituals are emerging around death as well. Many people are exploring ‘’hybrid’’ spirituality, taking elements from different spiritual practices and alternative wisdom to identify new rituals around how we mourn and memorialize people.
Many drivers are feeding our death-denying culture and society, and some of them are biohacking, anti-aging/stay-young wellness, and high-tech start-ups from Silicon Valley intending to extend life and ‘’cure death’’. However, as already mentioned, population aging seems to be one of the most significant social transformations in the future. All age groups will have to get used to the new implications for all sectors of society. How we are experiencing the end of life will likely gain the title of the status quo in the upcoming years.
Many ‘death-positive movement’ followers believe that the silence around death should be broken through discussion, art, and gatherings. Natural acceptance of death and conscious day-to-day living can be an excellent tool in grief therapy and overall well-being. Embracing one's mortality can lead to an increased awareness of the value of the present moment. Also, the new funeral is redefined in every way, becoming less formal and deeply personal. Death wellness events give people a voice to talk about their concerns, seek advice, and tell stories in a very therapeutic manner. Many people are assisted in exploring the meaning of their lives and creating a lasting legacy.
Due to death-related distress and exposure to serious diseases, some nurses can unconsciously project work-related stress into their lives. Some view the desire to control the end of one’s life as a form of existential denial, or crisis. It can be seen as an obsession that we need to release to embrace the lack of control and loss of dignity at the final stage of our lives.
