A hospice nurse has opened up about the reason she does not fear death - and why nobody should be scared of the process of passing away.
Dying can be a scary prospect - even if a person has lived a long and happy life, well into old age, the thought that one day your time will come does not sit well with many people.
However, it is something that comes to everyone eventually and is the only thing that's absolutely guaranteed in life.
Julie McFadden, 41, who is a hospice nurse, has explained why death shouldn't be something to be feared, having witnessed hundreds of people passing away throughout her career.
The Los Angeles-based nurse opened up about why death and dying isn't as scary as people think in a new YouTube video titled 'Why you shouldn't be afraid of death and dying'.
She explained the science behind the process of death, that the body has mechanisms that begin to "shut off" when death is approaching, meaning the final period of a person's life is usually painless and "peaceful".
Julie, who hopes to destigmatize dying, added: "I’m not afraid of death and here’s the science behind it, our body biologically helps us die, so here is what I’ve seen and learned as a hospice nurse over the years – our body is literally built to die."
She revealed that the process can begin around six months before a person passes away, when the person starts "eating less, drinking less, and sleeping more."
Explaining why that happens, she added: "Why is that happening? Because calcium levels in the body are going up and because calcium levels are going up the person is getting sleepier.
"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."
Watching a loved one nearing death can be difficult for the family, who are oblivious to the unseen changes happening within the body, and their perception is skewed to that of a healthy person, whereas the buying person is not actually suffering in that moment.
She continued: "You’re seeing what they’re going through and because we’re not in a dying body, it can feel really scary, and you think 'that must feel bad'. But when someone is in that dying body, it is a different shift, because not eating, not drinking feels natural."
Julie added that these symptoms are only in those dying natural deaths from old age, however, as deaths from accidents or disease can be different.
So while the injuries or illness can cause discomfort, the dying process actually helps the patient by making things easier on them as they reach the end.
She revealed: "There are times when the disease that the person is experiencing can cause symptoms and it’s more difficult because they’re dying from a certain disease, but the actual process that the body is going through to help it die is actually helping that person."
Julie added that often she doesn't have to administer pain medication to dying patients as they are "perfectly comfortable", and that the body even releases endorphins when a person is about to take their last breath.
"The body slowly goes into something called ketosis, which releases endorphins," she explained. "In that person’s body those endorphins dull pain, dull nerves, and they also give that person a euphoric sense, so they feel good."
She hopes that by explaining the mystifying process that comes at the end of a person's life, she will help others realize there is nothing to fear when the time eventually comes, adding: "There are many reasons why I don’t fear death… [including] biological, metabolical, and physiological things that happen in the body that truly, truly comforted me."
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