The Single Most Common Regret People Have In Their Last Days, According To A Hospice Nurse
It may make you think about your life a little bit differently.
gpointstudio | Shutterstock When people think about what it will be like to look back on their lives, they typically think about big, deep memories. No one assumes it will be the little things that grab their attention. But, according to one hospice nurse, that’s actually what she’s found to be true of her patients.
Death is just a natural part of the cycle of human life. And hospice nurses are on the front lines of this often unspoken part of the journey. They are privy to the secrets that only the last days of life can reveal and the regrets that commonly haunt their patients.
A hospice nurse said her patients are most regretful about not enjoying their health while they had it.
Julie McFadden, known as @hospicenursejulie on TikTok, is the bestselling author of “Nothing to Fear: Demystifying Death to Live More Fully,” and boasts 1.7 million followers on the platform. As a hospice nurse, McFadden spends a lot of time with people in their last moments, and she said that time isn’t as deep as one might assume.
“The number one regret I hear from my patients as a hospice nurse is something that I literally never hear anyone else talk about,” she shared. “Most people think that as a hospice nurse, you hear all these profound things all the time, and that does happen sometimes. But most of the time, you are there as a nurse.”
McFadden explained that when she’s helping someone use the bathroom or asking about their pain level, their first response isn’t usually to talk about some deep, dark secret or share their most joyous memory. Instead, they reflect on what they’re focused on at the moment — their health.
“But where you start hearing about regrets is in the little things they say, and if you pay attention, it’s very, very clear,” she said. “And the number one thing that most dying people regret is not appreciating their health while they had it.” It’s not that strange when you think about it, really. When someone is close to the end of their life, they’re mainly concentrating on their health. Reminiscing on times when their health was better, but they might have taken it for granted, makes sense.
The hospice nurse said she hears people mourn the little things they used to be able to do that now seem big.
“I always hear people say little, tiny things like, ‘Oh, I wish I’d appreciated how much I loved that burger and how good that burger tastes,’” she continued. “‘Now it doesn’t taste as good.’”
Other common things McFadden hears patients discuss are the ease with which they once went up and down the stairs, brushed their teeth, talked, got out of bed, and went to the bathroom. All, of course, are things that you wouldn’t really pay much mind to until you suddenly couldn’t do them, like McFadden’s patients.
“You don’t realize how much you use your body until you can’t use it,” she said. “I take that lesson with me every single day. I try to appreciate the little things that are actually big things.”
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A study found that people really do tend to take their health for granted.
The study, conducted by OnePoll, included 2,000 participants from the U.K. Researchers found that 84% of participants said they thought that they took their health for granted when they were younger. Dr. Elizabeth Rogers, the associate clinical director at Bupa Health Clinics in the U.K., said, “It can be very easy to disregard your health — particularly when you are young or you feel that everything is okay.”
Health is just one of those things you don’t really think about unless it’s going badly for some reason. It’s something that just exists. But, even if you live a relatively healthy life, chances are things will decline at some point, particularly as you age. You don’t want to spend the last moments of your life wishing you had appreciated your health more. Give it the gratitude it deserves today.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
