A hospice nurse has explained why you should not be afraid to die, drawing on her years of experience in providing end-of-life care.
What happens to you during and after you die is a matter of fascination for many people, both in a biological and spiritual sense.
Whether there is some kind of life after death as some believe or whether death really is the final word and you must always face the curtain with a bow, it's something we may never gain a concrete answer to.
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There are people who've come back from being 'dead' and given different accounts of what it's like, but whether they caught a glimpse of the true beyond or whether it was just their brain doing what it needed to in what seemed like the final moments is anyone's guess.
Nonetheless, that final curtain which falls for everyone is a scary subject for many people, but hospice nurse Julie McFadden has given her reason why it shouldn't be something to fear.
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The Los Angeles-based nurse has shared her insights into life, death and care on social media several times, and previously said people should learn more about the process of dying before they either go through it themselves or witness a loved one experiencing it.
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She previously explained that 'almost everybody' she cared for in their final days claimed that they'd been visited by people who'd already died 'about a month before they die'.
As for the reason why we should not be scared of death, the hospice nurse said that the human body is 'built to die' and as such it 'biologically helps us die'.
Julie claimed that in the six months leading up to death the body begins to slowly shut down, meaning someone would start 'eating less, drinking less and sleeping more'.
"Our brains have built in mechanisms to make us hungry and thirsty," she said of the process.
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"Biologically, when the body knows it's getting towards the end of life those mechanisms shut off, so the person does not usually feel hungry and does not usually feel thirsty, which is helping the body slowly shut down."
The nurse reassured people that it felt 'natural' to those dying, and that because the human body was 'built to die' there were a number of things it did to smooth the process and make it more comfortable for those going through it.
She said: "The body slowly goes into something called ketosis, which releases endorphins.
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"In that person's body those endorphins dull pain, dull nerves, and they also give that person a euphoric sense, so they feel good.
"There are many reasons why I don't fear death. Yes, I have had some pretty crazy spiritual experiences as a hospice nurse that led me to not fear death, but there are also biological, metabolical, and physiological things that happen in the body that truly, truly comforted me."
Topics: Health
Joe Harker