What we can learn from Near-Death Experiences and How They Relate to Midlife Crises

How would a 'near-death' experience ("NDE") affect your life? It may tell you a lot about yourself and the changes you should make even without experiencing one. The near-death experience and its aftermath also gives guidance to dealing with midlife crisis and possibility heading one off.

The question ("How would a near-death experience affect your life?) was posed to Tyler Cowen, an economist who pens the extremely popular Marginal Revolution blog and explains real life, day-to-day experiences in "econospeak". Tyler reponded as follows:

I say use the experience to rationalize a change you wanted to make anyway. Most people have less than perfect courage or willpower, but a near-death experience can provide a pro-change focal point in a multiple-selves game.

Alternatively the trauma of the tragedy can disrupt the previous mindset and thus weaken the hold of status quo bias. Or the vividness of a shorter time horizon moves the multiple selves to a "trembling hand" solution concept, in which life pursuits are more robust to the probability of an early death.

The bottom line?: In predictive terms, I would expect that near-death experiences make good people better and bad people worse.

In a follow-up post, Cowen gives this advice, which once again parallels the advice given to people with midlife crises:

My advice ... Choosing rationally requires that you choose today so that if you have a near-death experience you will not change your life. The fact that many people who have a near-death experience do change their lives is evidence that most people do not choose rationally. Thus the ways in which people who have had near-death experiences change their lives is important information for the rest of us who want to choose rationally.

Thus, if near-death experiences tend to make people more giving, caring and less fearful of change then this is how you should act today.

Cowen suggestion is an interesting personal growth exercise. Imagine that you are almost killed. What do you do afterward that is different than your current trajectory? (Hint: odds are it won't be spending more time at the office, calling your elderly parents less often, putting off things you enjoy doing, etc.). If you are "rational" in the economic sense, then these are things you should be doing today.

According to research on near-death experiences done at the University of Virgina:

The power of the experience often is life-altering. Fear of death vanishes. love of life blossoms. Spirituality strengthens. Compassion and connectedness become central principles.

They note that near-death experiences vary amongst individuals and culture and that issues such as level of spirituality can affect the experience. However there is remarkable similarities among them.

What does any of this have to do with Midlife Crises?

On the positive side, the LifeTwo posting "What Do You Mean There Are Four, or Five, or Six Types of Midlife Crisis?" we write about the "Type 2 Midlife Crisis":

Type 2: Knowing You've Got A Finite Amount of Time Triggers a Midlife Assessment, Not Crisis

It's not only possible to assess one's life and future without becoming clinically depressed, it's quite common. Recent research has shown that this is a normal process during midlife, and many argue that it should be embraced, not ignored. If the path you're on at midlife isn't the path you want to be on, why not change?

Note the similarities with how Cowen explains the near-death experience. In both cases a trigger (a crisis or a near-death experience) leads to a healthy assessment process. This doesn't mean that they should all be acted upon but it does mean that the feelings should be acknowledged and addressed.

But as we know, not everyone has an assessment (or a series of assessments) to adjust themselves as they work their way through life. This can happen for a variety of internal and external pressures limiting change. But for the many people who've had near-death experiences (estimated at 1 in 20), the external (that is social) pressures are effectively removed and possibly the internal ones as well. After facing death, it's easier for people to make drastic changes in their lives. Is it possible that the midlife crisis is just another form of near-death experience (albeit far more drawn out and absent the "white tunnels" and sense of well-being)?

More on midlife crises here.

In closing, we should note that Cowen addressed the issue of near-death experiences after receiving an email from a young man that just had one in a car accident. This is his email sent one week after the NDE:

The biggest change I can see in myself is a kind of rescaling of how important I judge a thing to be. Assuming that being born is the most important thing that ever happens to you, dying has to be second. Since I've all but done that, ideas that used to terrify me don't bother me much. As jb suggested, I have considered blithely quitting my frustrating job because, my thinking goes, how comparatively bad could unemployment be? Before the accident I was a jittery Woody Allen type; now I'm much more laid back - at first I assumed this was a neurochemical aftereffect of the accident, but it's lasted this long.

I have noticed that I'm much more circumspect now in my dealings with people, especially in considering that I may be wrong. The possibility that I'd total my car in broad daylight with no traffic, on a road I'd driven many times, would never have occurred to me. I've started to reconsider key assumptions, such as that it's necessarily true that I'm a good person, something I think pretty much everyone assumes. I don't know what's to be done if I decide I'm not a good person, but I hadn't thought about it before now.

Action item for readers: What would you do if you had a near-death experience?

External tag: near-death experience