Dying could be nicer than you’d think, according to research

"It turns out, dying is less sad and terrifying — and happier — than you think."

It's one of life's certainties. We'll all go at some point, but a new study shows that dying might not be as awful an experience as you might expect. Researchers analysed blogposts written by terminally ill patients with cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and the last words of death row inmates. They looked at them alongside some imagined last words from volunteers who were not really about to die and came to an interesting conclusion. They found that the closer people were to death, the more positive words they tended to use. They were most likely to focus on things like religion and family, the researchers found. "When we imagine our emotions as we approach death, we think mostly of sadness and terror,” Kurt Gray, a researcher at University of North Carolina, told the Telegraph. “But it turns out, dying is less sad and terrifying — and happier — than you think. “In our imagination, dying is lonely and meaningless, but the final blog posts of terminally ill patients and the last words of death row inmates are filled with love, social connection, and meaning.” The full report appeared in the Psychological Science journal and can be read here.