What Happens to the Body When You Die? Fascinating Facts You Need to Know About

Posted on: Mar 4, 2020 Publish By: funerallink

As we always mentioned, death is an inevitable part of our human lives. Some people would agree to the fact that our human bodies are like shells that degrade from usage and time. Although we have every possibility to create, do and discover the world, when our bodies degrade, it’s impossible to keep up with a fighting spirit.

In this article, we steer away from coping-ups, emotional shutdowns and crying as we all discover what really happens to the body after its death.

The integration of preservation techniques we all know today as mummification and embalming made it possible for dear ones to view the bodies of their departed before sending them off to an eternal goodbye.

As interesting and tragic as it may sound, a dead body decays once its heart stops beating. After the heart stops working, there are a lot of processes that happen as the dead body ultimately reaches decomposition. Here’s a quick, complete and awful rundown of what happens to the body when it dies.

Seconds after death

The first thing that science discovers is that when a deceased body’s stopped working, the brain activity ramps up into a surge then it stops. After a few moments, the body’s temperature drops.

Minutes after death

One by one, your cells die because of a lack of oxygen. Next, every single cell breaks down and its contents are leaked as the process of putrefaction begins.

What happens to the body when you die

Hours after death

Then the “rigor mortis” happens. This happens when the calcium content inside the deceased body’s build-up, causing the muscles to tense. The “rigor mortis” lasts for an average of 36 hours. This is the phase where most people would agree as creepy and fascinating at the same time.

Once the phase of “rigor mortis” ends, the muscles relax, causing the deceased body to release the remaining urine and feces. As an effect of gravity pulling down the deceased body’s blood downwards, the upper extremities are eventually riddled with reddish and light spots.

After the appearance of spots, the dead body’s skin starts to shrink. In effect, the nails and the hair look like it is growing at a rapid rate.

Days after death

The terrible smell you emit is caused by the decaying body’s release of bodily chemicals known as cadaverine/putrescine. Furthermore, green spots appear in a deceased body as the enzymes that help in digesting food items devour the organ as bacteria helps it.

Weeks after death

Maggots eat the deceased the body’s remains and you’ll be surprised that for a week’s time, 60% of the body has been eaten. More so, the cadaver’s hair falls out. Aside from going green from enzymes that digest the deceased body’s organs, it will appear as purple and ultimately black as the bacteria continuously consumes the dead body.

As science would explain it, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to know or wanting to discover what really happens to the body when it dies. In fact, this is a great place to be informed of the bodily processes that most people would consider as taboo.

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