One of the latest wellness trends is people wrapping themselves up like mummies and imagining their dead bodies to imagine their eventual death and come to terms.
Death Meditation, a mindfulness meditation practice that focuses on thoughts of one’s death, has taken social media by storm, with 2.5 million views on TikTok and 3,000 posts on Instagram.
In addition, classes have sprung up in major cities like New York and Los Angeles aimed at making practitioners feel at peace with dying.
While the practice may seem new, it has ancient roots.
There are different types of death meditation, and some are based on certain Buddhist traditions. One is maranasati, or mindfulness of death, which reminds practitioners that they may die at any moment and must be prepared.
A death meditation practice involves visualizing the inevitable decay of the body to release attachment to the material world. In some more intense sessions, participants wrap themselves in white sheets to make themselves look and feel like mummies
Maranasati learns that death is not a scary concept, but rather a natural process, and thinking about it can lead to a more positive outlook.
Another practice of death meditation involves visualizing the inevitable decay of the body in order to let go of attachments to the material world.
In some more intense sessions, participants wrap themselves in white sheets to make themselves look like mummies or write their own eulogies to read aloud to a group.
One class was advertised on Instagram as “a breath-guided meditation intended to contemplate death in many forms.”
While some methods may be more extreme, death meditation may take a lighter approach, such as imagining details about important moments in your life, such as who was there, how you felt, what it smelled like, and what it sounded like.
“It’s amazing for people who have anxiety related to death and dying and intrusive thoughts related to it,” Dr. Carolyn Rubenstein, a licensed psychologist in Florida, told DailyMail.com.
This is because death meditation can be a form of exposure therapy, a technique intended to help overcome fears and fears by forcing patients to confront them.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t have fear or anxiety, but you are able to look at (death) through both the lens of emotion and logic… so that you can focus on the present moment and what is there.” happening right now,” said Dr. Rubenstein.
Research indicates that death anxiety, known as thanatophobia, has become more common since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A study of Lebanese patients, published last year in PLOS One found that death anxiety was the most common form of anxiety associated with the pandemic.
In addition, a Chinese study published in March found that elderly patients between the ages of 60 and 96 were most likely to experience death anxiety during the pandemic.
“People are more willing to talk about (terrified). People share, whereas in the past I think people were more hesitant to share that fear,” said Dr. Rubenstein.
“Particularly with Covid, spirituality and a sense of belonging, especially to yourself, became something people focused much more on.”
By entering into a dialogue about these fears, people learn to acknowledge them.
Another study of the University of Kentucky suggested that thinking about death might lead to greater happiness.
“Contemplating death promotes an orientation toward emotionally pleasurable stimuli,” study authors Dr. Nathan DeWall and Dr. Roy Baumeister.
Dr. Rubenstein does not recommend that people with severe depression or suicidal thoughts practice death meditation.
“You don’t want the thoughts of death and dying to build up and make you feel more comfortable with it for someone who already feels a little close to that,” she said.
She does suggest getting into the practice slowly rather than immediately wrapping yourself in a white sheet to look like a mummy. She recommends imagining death as part of nature’s life cycle or starting to remember pets that have died because their lifespans are shorter.
From there, consider your own death.
“You recognize that death is real,” Dr. Rubenstein said.
“We’re not immortal, and that recognition is important so you can make the most of today.”