Let me ask you something: Have you ever been watching TV with your family, laughing at some sitcom, when suddenly your mind drifts to a thought you don’t want to have? One day, everyone in this room will be gone. And just like that, the laughter sounds hollow. Your chest tightens. You try to push the thought away, but it lingers like smoke.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. What you might be experiencing is death anxiety, and it’s far more common than most people realize.
What Exactly Is Death Anxiety?
Death anxiety—sometimes called thanatophobia—is an intense, persistent fear of death and dying. But here’s what makes it tricky: everyone thinks about death sometimes. That’s normal. That’s human. Death anxiety becomes a problem when these thoughts aren’t just passing concerns, but rather intrusive worries that take over your mind and interfere with your ability to live your life.
Research tells us that up to 10% of people experience death anxiety, with about 3% having an intense fear of death. Interestingly, studies have found that death anxiety tends to peak during our twenties—a time when we’re supposedly in the prime of our lives—and women may experience a second spike during their fifties.
What’s particularly striking about death anxiety is that it doesn’t discriminate. During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers found that death anxiety affected people differently: patients with COVID-19 and those with chronic illnesses showed the highest levels of death anxiety (around 59%), while healthcare workers, surprisingly, showed lower levels than the general population.
The Different Faces of Death Anxiety
Not everyone experiences death anxiety the same way. You might worry about:
Your own death. The thought that one day you’ll simply cease to exist. That everything you’ve worked for, everyone you love, all your memories—gone. This type of death anxiety can feel like standing at the edge of an endless void.
The dying process itself. Maybe it’s not the end that scares you, but how you’ll get there. Will it hurt? Will you be alone? Will you lose control or dignity? These fears can become consuming, especially if you’ve witnessed someone else’s difficult passing.
Losing someone you love. This might be the most relatable form of death anxiety. The thought of losing a parent, partner, child, or close friend can be absolutely paralyzing. You might find yourself checking in excessively or catastrophizing every small health concern they mention.
What happens after. The uncertainty of what, if anything, comes next. Whether you’re religious, spiritual, or atheist, the great unknown can be terrifying.
How Death Anxiety Actually Shows Up in Your Life
Here’s the thing about death anxiety: it rarely announces itself clearly. It’s more likely to disguise itself as something else entirely.
You might find yourself:
Avoiding everything death-related. Steering clear of funerals, changing the channel when the news covers tragic deaths, refusing to discuss wills or end-of-life planning. One person I know won’t drive past cemeteries and takes elaborate detours to avoid them.
Obsessing over your health. Every headache is a brain tumor. Every irregular heartbeat means imminent cardiac arrest. You Google symptoms obsessively at 2 AM, each search taking you deeper down a rabbit hole of worst-case scenarios. This is where death anxiety and health anxiety become deeply intertwined.
Checking and rechecking. Is the stove really off? Did you lock the door? Are your kids breathing while they sleep? These safety behaviors feel protective, but they’re actually feeding the anxiety.
Experiencing physical symptoms. When death-related thoughts hit, your body responds: racing heart, sweating, nausea, dizziness, feeling like you can’t breathe. These panic symptoms can be so intense that they paradoxically make you fear you’re dying in that very moment.
Struggling with insomnia. Research has found strong connections between death anxiety and sleep problems. Your mind won’t quiet down at night because that’s when the distractions fade and the big existential questions come knocking.
When Normal Worry Becomes Death Anxiety
So how do you know if what you’re experiencing crosses the line from normal mortality concerns into actual death anxiety? Ask yourself these questions:
Are thoughts about death taking up a lot of your mental energy? Do they pop up multiple times a day, uninvited?
Are you avoiding important things because they remind you of death? Missing out on experiences, relationships, or necessary tasks?
Is your life getting smaller? Are you pulling away from the world because it feels safer to stay in your comfort zone?
Have people close to you expressed concern? Sometimes others notice the pattern before we do.
If you answered yes to most of these, it’s worth taking seriously. Death anxiety isn’t something you just “get over” through willpower or positive thinking.
Why Do Some People Develop Intense Death Anxiety?
Human beings are unique in the animal kingdom—we’re the only species that’s truly aware of our own mortality. From an evolutionary perspective, this awareness helped our ancestors avoid dangers and survive. But for some people, this protective mechanism goes into overdrive.
Several factors can contribute to developing death anxiety:
Early experiences with death. Losing someone close to you at a young age, witnessing a traumatic death, or growing up in an environment where death was either terrifyingly overemphasized or completely avoided.
Anxiety running in the family. If you grew up with anxious or overprotective parents, you might have learned that the world is more dangerous than it actually is. Research suggests there’s also a genetic component—anxiety can run in families.
Traumatic experiences. Being involved in a serious accident, surviving a health crisis, or experiencing combat can heighten awareness of mortality in ways that persist long after the danger has passed.
Underlying mental health conditions. Death anxiety often doesn’t travel alone. It frequently shows up alongside other anxiety disorders, depression, OCD, or PTSD. In fact, some researchers believe death anxiety might be a fundamental fear underlying many other psychological problems—the “anxiety beneath the anxiety,” if you will.
The “Revolving Door” Problem
Here’s something important that therapists are increasingly recognizing: if death anxiety is driving your other symptoms, but treatment only addresses the surface-level issues, you might get temporary relief, but the problems keep coming back.
Think of it this way: someone comes to therapy for health anxiety. They learn techniques to manage their fear of illness. They feel better. Six months later, they’re back with different symptoms—maybe now it’s panic attacks. Why? Because the underlying death anxiety was never addressed. Therapists call this the “revolving door” problem.
This is why getting to the root of what’s actually driving your anxiety matters so much.
How CBT Helps With Death Anxiety
The good news—and this is really important—is that death anxiety can be treated effectively. Research consistently shows that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT therapy) is one of the most effective approaches for reducing death anxiety.
CBT doesn’t try to convince you that death isn’t real or that you shouldn’t think about it. Instead, it helps you change your relationship with these thoughts and develop a more balanced, less fearful perspective on mortality.
Cognitive restructuring involves identifying and challenging the specific beliefs that fuel your death anxiety. Maybe you believe dying will be unbearably painful, or that your loved ones couldn’t survive without you, or that life is meaningless because it ends. In therapy, we examine whether these beliefs are realistic and helpful, and work toward more balanced perspectives.
For example, while death is inevitable, most people don’t die in severe pain thanks to modern palliative care. And while grief is difficult, research shows that most people do find ways to cope with the death of loved ones, however painful it may be.
Exposure therapy might sound scary, but it’s probably not what you think. You’re not going to be forced to attend funerals or stare at coffins. Instead, it’s a gradual process of reducing avoidance and becoming more comfortable with mortality-related content.
This might involve:
Reading books or watching films that touch on death themes
Having conversations about end-of-life planning
Visiting places you’ve been avoiding (like cemeteries or hospitals)
Writing about your fears in a structured way
Gradually allowing yourself to sit with death-related thoughts rather than pushing them away
The goal isn’t to make you stop caring about death—that would be impossible and even undesirable. The goal is to help you develop what researchers call “neutral acceptance” of death. Not excitement about it, not constant dread, but an acknowledgment that death is a natural part of life that doesn’t need to consume your present moments.
Recent research has even developed online CBT programs specifically for death anxiety, with studies showing that 60% of participants experienced clinically significant reductions in their death anxiety. This tells us that structured, evidence-based treatment really works.
What Else Can Help?
Beyond therapy, there are some approaches that many people find helpful:
The “death positivity” movement encourages open conversations about mortality. Some people participate in “death dinners”—gatherings where they discuss death openly with friends. Over 200,000 people have participated in these events. While this might not be for everyone, normalizing conversations about death can reduce its power to frighten us.
Meaning-making can be powerful. Some find comfort in the idea of “rippling”—the notion that our influence continues through the people we’ve touched, even after we’re gone. Our values, our kindness, our impact on others creates ripples that extend beyond our lifetime.
Focusing on what you can control. You can’t control when or how death will come. But you can control how you live right now. Are you building meaningful relationships? Pursuing what matters to you? Making the most of your time? Sometimes the antidote to death anxiety is truly living.
A Different Way to Think About It
Richard Dawkins once wrote something that might sound strange at first: “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.” His point? Most potential people will never be born. Most genetic combinations will never come into existence. But you did. You got this chance to be here, to experience life, to love people, to see sunsets and taste good food and laugh until your stomach hurts.
The fact that it ends doesn’t make it meaningless. Some might argue it makes it more precious.
I’m not trying to solve death anxiety with inspirational quotes—I know it’s not that simple. But I do think there’s something to this perspective: what if the antidote to death anxiety isn’t avoiding thinking about death, but rather fully embracing the life you have while you have it?
You Don’t Have to Face This Alone
If death anxiety is making your world smaller, if you’re avoiding experiences because they trigger thoughts of mortality, if you’re spending hours worrying about health symptoms or losing loved ones—there is help available.
Death anxiety is increasingly recognized as a legitimate issue that deserves direct treatment, not just as a symptom of something else. As a Chicago anxiety therapist who specializes in CBT, I’ve seen how much relief people experience when they finally address these deep fears directly.
The goal isn’t to never think about death again. It’s to free yourself from the grip of death anxiety so you can actually live. Because here’s the paradox: the more we try to avoid thinking about death, the more it controls us. The more we can face it with clarity and calm, the freer we become to enjoy the life we have.
You’re not broken. You’re not being irrational. You’re experiencing something that millions of people face. And with the right support and evidence-based treatment, you can find your way through it to a place where death is just one part of life’s landscape—acknowledged, but not all-consuming.
Ready to address your death anxiety? Contact us to learn more about how CBT can help you overcome thanatophobia and reclaim your peace of mind. Serving Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Streeterville, and surrounding Chicago neighborhoods.