What Happens to My Body Right After I Die?

It is difficult to generalize how people will respond to the subject of death because each of us is unique, but we generally feel uncomfortable at the thought of our own mortality. What often underlies this uneasiness, however, is thinking about the process of dying and the fear of a prolonged or painful death, rather than the state of being dead.Ironically, despite spending a lifetime walking around in the same body and doing our best to care for it, few seem to wonder what happens to their physical remains right after death occurs. Here is a timeline of the processes involved, assuming the deceased remains undisturbed, including the transition from primary flaccidity to secondary flaccidity

We often think of the moment of death as that time at which the heartbeat and breathing stop. We are learning, however, that death isn’t instant. Our brains are now thought to continue to “work” for 10 minutes or so after we die, meaning that our brains may, in some way, be aware of our death. The research, however, is only very preliminary. In the hospital setting, there are a few requirements doctors use to define death. These include the absence of a pulse, the absence of breathing, the absence of reflexes, and the absence of pupillary constriction in response to a bright light. In an emergency setting, paramedics look for the 5 signs of irreversible death to determine when resuscitation not possible.