Is Preparing for Death and Dying the Most Important Life Task After Turning 80?

PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“This world can be a wonder, but be not afraid of leaving it.”¹

Recently, I received an email from my lifelong best friend’s wife. It was time for Barry’s Yahrzeit, his third, Yahrzeit being the annual commemoration of a Jewish person’s death based on the Hebrew lunar calendar. It was a trigger to all the trauma of his sudden death. And yet, at least I had some comfort that we had talked about our prospective deaths more and more over the years before. In fact, I moved up a proposed get-together to visit him, just in case, and it was in the nick of time, as he died about a month later.

Death and dying is not a popular subject to discuss in the United States, being a country always emphasizing material progress. Fortunately, there are some guidelines and perspectives to use once we are willing to do so. Turning 80 adds emphasis that the time to do so is shortening.

Religious Beliefs About Death and Dying

Most all religions have a viewpoint about death, dying, and the afterlife.² For instance, my Judaism emphasizes how we live over what happens when we die. Christianity and Islam have a view of an eternal afterlife of Heaven or Hell, depending on how life was lived and blessings by clergy. Most of the so-called Eastern religions—Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, for example—emphasize preparation for the soul’s afterlife and reincarnation as some entity depending on the karma of the life. Body burial also varies with religion. It seems, though, that most all religions pose that how one lives will have influence about an afterlife, if in fact there is one.

Scientific Studies About Death and Dying

Medicine and psychiatry have been studying whether there seems to be any scientific evidence for something after death.³ This research includes voluminous reports, including by children, of something happening to those in the dying process, most commonly being drawn to a bright light in a tunnel, and even meeting some deceased loved ones “on the other side,” before being pulled back to life. Often in a hospital bed getting emergency care, they accurately report what they have seen from floating atop.

Regardless of religious beliefs, there are also reports, often processed during psychotherapy, for souls to continue to process and learn what they need to from past lives to afterlife.⁴

Less controversial is psychiatry’s role in the mourning process, both for those dying and especially their loved ones. The psychiatrist Kubler-Ross developed 5 stages of mourning that can be processed in various ways, that seem to provide some comfort and resolution of the grieving process. Her protege more recently added a meaningful sixth stage, that of finding meaning in the loss.⁵

Death Anxiety

Both religions and psychiatry have been involved with alleviating death anxiety. That anxiety may be related to the unknown, the guilt about unresolved life disappointments, and the ending of opportunities to change. Recently, psychedelics are being researched as a way to reduce this undue death anxiety.

Often there are requests for medical aid in dying that can include alleviation of that undue anxiety besides the physical pain and terminal illness. As we have debated in Psychiatric Times, there is controversy in psychiatry about the appropriateness of that process and the role of psychiatrists in it.⁶

Irving Yalom, known originally for his expertise in group psychotherapy, came to appreciate the importance of the terror about death and dying.⁷ He came to conclude that death is at the root of much undue anxiety. He concluded that discussing death and dying should be a part of any clinical situation.

Death and Dying as a Healthy Lifestyle

Discussing death and dying over the lifespan can be a part of the healthy lifestyle that we have recently been advocating in our new psychiatric subspecialty of lifestyle psychiatry. Being reminded of the uncertainly of when one will die can enhance the appreciation of life, wonder, and awe. Besides religious reminders, there are secular days that could be used more: Memorial Day for the military, birthdays, the secular New Year, and more.

Death and dying can be discussed over a lifetime. Its meaning can change over time. In particular, it can stimulate concern with realizing a purpose in life, and finding a purpose tends to increase physical and mental health.

Children need information geared to their understanding of what death and dying mean, especially when there is the death of a pet or family member. Elders are looking for life satisfaction as they review their lives.

In later years, besides what one would desire in health care when dying, that can include writing your own eulogy, desired legacy, and an ethical will, as well as trying to resolve any painful conflicts with forgiveness.

Conclusions

Normalizing death discussions can have major repercussions for how we live.⁸ On the one hand, finding ways to process death over time in a way that is generally palatable and tolerable, if not desired, is a current challenge. On the other hand, hope springs eternal to overcome physical death and the first clinical trials of a therapy to reverse the aging process is to begin.⁹ And then there is something that seems in-between, the Singularitarians who emphasize the need for us to merge with our AI machines.¹⁰ For now, is it best to explore all?

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

References

1. Shaw M. Liturgies of the Wild: Myths That Make Us. Penguin; 2026.

2. Moffic, HS, Gogineni, RR, Peteet, JR, et al, eds. Eastern Religions, Spirituality, and Psychiatry: An Expansive Perspective on Mental Health and Illness. Springer Cham; 2024.

3. Moreira-Almeida A, Costa M, Coelho HS. Science of Life After Death. Springer Nature; 2022.

4. Moffic HS. The afterlife and psychiatry. Psychiatric Times. June 27, 2025. https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-afterlife-and-psychiatry

5. Kessler D. Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Scribner; 2019.

6. Moffic HS. Death and personal aide in dying (PAID). Psychiatric Times. June 26, 2025. https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/death-and-personal-aid-in-dying-paid

7. Yalom ID. Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death. Jossey-Bass; 2009.

8. Moffic HS. Social psychiatry: death and dying. In: Gogineni RR, Pumariega AJ, Kallivayalil R, et al. The WASP Textbook on Social Psychiatry. Oxford University Press; 2023.

9. The Weekend Press: On ‘Melania,’ and Chugging Milk with RFK Jr. The Free Press. January 31, 2026. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://www.thefp.com/p/the-weekend-press-on-melania-and

10. Douthat R. Pay more attention to A.I. New York Times. January 31, 2026. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/opinion/artificial-intelligence-new-world.html