• Question: Do any of you know what happens when you die?

    Asked by Kajetan_KSM to Christie, Dan, David, Dawn, Sian on 14 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Dawn Lau

      Dawn Lau answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      At the moment of death, there is a spike in brain activity. (This might explain people’s near-death experiences.) Your muscles will give some final twitches as they use up the remaining energy in your cells, and they will relax. Your blood stops flowing, so eventually your skin becomes clammy and pale, except for the place where the blood that is still left in your body collects (so that bit of your body starts to look like a bruise).

      Eventually your body will go into rigor mortis, which causes a stiffening of all the muscles. This is caused by the accumulation of calcium in your muscle cells and your body remains in a contracted state.

    • Photo: Christie Waddington

      Christie Waddington answered on 17 Jun 2016:

      Death is quite interesting in terms of what happens to the body. It shows how much the body does everyday to keep us alive! The first thing that will happen is that your heart will stop so you wont have blood flowing around the body. Because the blood isn’t being pumped around, it starts to clump together forming clots. Your body temperature also drops so you become very cold. Your muscles will then stiffen (rigor mortis).

      Because you are no longer breathing, and the heart is no longer pumping, there is no oxygen in the cells so your mitochondria can no longer maker cellular energy (ATP) so they die too. As the mitochondria die, they release enzymes which makes the environment in your body perfect for bacteria to grow in. The bacteria start to grow and the body begins to decompose. It takes roughly year for the body to completely decompose.

    • Photo: David Robertson

      David Robertson answered on 19 Jun 2016:

      Nothing to add to Dawn and Christie’s splendid answers.

    • Photo: Sian Thomas

      Sian Thomas answered on 20 Jun 2016:

      Interesting physiological answers – but there is also some psychology in here too. Different cultures have different traditions around death and mourning. But in almost all cases there is a significant food component. In ancient times burials in some cultures ensured that sufficient food was interred with the body to ensure safe delivery to the afterlife. And still today there is very much a focus on food at and after death – be it on a practical level or for reasons of tradition.

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