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Meanwhile, Belief in Heaven Shows Little Link to Mental Health
In A Nutshell
- Jewish adults in Israel who felt sure others would remember them after death reported less depression, anxiety, and trauma-related stress.
- They also reported fewer problems with substance use and habits such as gambling, gaming, and social media use.
- Belief in an afterlife showed no clear link to mental health symptoms and only weak, inconsistent links to addiction problems.
- Results from 2,912 people show a link, not proof of cause and effect, and came from a survey taken during a war.
People who feel sure others will remember them after they die report less depression, anxiety, and trauma-related stress, according to a new survey of nearly 3,000 Jewish adults in Israel. Belief in heaven or reincarnation showed no clear link to those same mental health symptoms.
Participants who felt sure they would leave a mark through accomplishments or legacy also reported fewer problems with alcohol, cannabis, prescription drugs, gambling, gaming, pornography, compulsive sexual behavior, social media, and internet use. Belief in an afterlife showed a much weaker and less consistent pattern across those same habits.
Psychologists built the work on terror management theory, an idea from the 1980s. It holds that people keep the fear of death in check with mental buffers, such as self-esteem, close relationships, belonging to a group, and a sense that something of them will outlast them. When those buffers weaken, the theory says, anxiety and unhealthy coping habits can fill the space.
Earlier research had tied fear of death to mental illness, including a 2024 review of 104 studies, and the authors suggest that feeling remembered may be “the opposite side of the same coin.” The survey took place while Israel was fighting a war with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, a setting where thoughts of mortality were likely heightened.
About 2,900 Jewish Israelis Were Asked About Being Remembered After Death
Uri Lifshin of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and colleagues published the work in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. Data came from an online survey panel in February 2025. Of 10,869 people invited, 4,731 agreed, and 2,912 remained after exclusions for filled quotas, failed attention checks, unfinished surveys, and duplicate answers.
Participants ages 18 to 70 were chosen to roughly match the country’s adult Jewish population by gender, age, religiousness, and region. The group included 1,398 men, 1,509 women, and 5 people who reported another gender, with an average age of about 42.
Surveys measured mental health symptoms, problem use of substances and behaviors, and the mental buffers described above. Questions about behaviors such as gaming and social media covered the previous six months, or 12 months for gambling.
A single question formed the key measure: whether participants thought other people would remember them after death, through accomplishments or legacy, rated from certainly not to certainly yes. Most answers tilted toward yes. A separate single question covered belief in an afterlife. The two beliefs were related but far from identical.
Linked here means a statistical pattern in which scores on one measure tended to rise or fall alongside scores on another.
Belief in Being Remembered After Death Came With Fewer Mental Health Problems
People more confident they would be remembered also reported higher self-esteem, more social support, and more meaning in life, the buffers the theory describes. Those patterns held after researchers accounted for factors such as education, political views, parenthood, and belief in an afterlife. Having children and being in a long-term relationship were each mildly tied to feeling sure of being remembered. Meaning in life showed the single strongest tie of all. Self-esteem, social support, and meaning in life generally tracked with fewer problems on their own, so feeling sure of being remembered looks like one piece of a larger pattern.
Sleep trouble and difficulty managing emotions were milder among confident participants too. The links were modest, and generally smaller for addiction than for mental health. Among the problems measured, they were strongest for trouble managing emotions and depression, and weakest for gambling and drinking.
Belief in an afterlife told a different story. Its strongest ties were to religiousness and belief in God. Its links to addiction were small, with slightly fewer problems involving alcohol, cannabis, pornography, and compulsive sexual behavior, but slightly more problem internet use.
Results Show a Link, Not Proof, That Legacy Helps Mental Health
Because everyone was surveyed once, the results cannot show which came first. Depression or addiction could wear down a person’s sense of mattering, rather than the reverse, or the two could feed each other. Wartime may also have strengthened the patterns. Nor do the results show that religious belief fails to help mental health in general, only that afterlife belief showed little link in this group.
Still, the pattern fits an idea the authors lean on: addictive habits may sometimes be about more than chasing pleasure, and could also be a way of coping with fear of dying. Earlier experiments found that reminders of death increased consumption of alcoholic drinks and cravings for tobacco and cannabis. The authors add a wider thought: other animals can show addictive behavior but do not normally develop problem use in the wild, which may hint that awareness of mortality is a uniquely human piece of the puzzle. The survey did not measure motives, so all of this remains theory.
Feeling sure of being remembered goes along with better mental health, but this survey cannot show that building a legacy would improve it. Testing that, rather than assuming it, is the next job.
Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and is not medical or mental health advice. The research reports statistical links and cannot show that any belief causes better or worse health. Anyone struggling with depression, anxiety, or addiction should talk with a qualified health professional.
Paper Notes
Limitations
Data were collected at a single point in time, so the relationships are correlational, and the authors state that poor mental health or addiction could also weaken a person’s sense of being remembered, and that the two could influence each other. Belief in being remembered was measured with one survey question rather than a fuller scale, which the authors say may be less accurate and stable. All participants were Jewish Israelis surveyed during the Swords of Iron war, a period of heightened collective threat that the authors say may have made the associations stronger than they would be in peacetime or in other countries. The authors also caution that the analysis does not establish belief in being remembered as an independent factor beyond self-esteem, secure relationships, and meaning in life, and instead treats it as a broad indicator tied to several of those buffers. Because the analysis looked across many outcomes at once, it did not examine the specific background factors behind each condition, and the authors recommend future work in clinical groups rather than a general community sample. The measures were self-reported, and the study was not preregistered.
Funding and Disclosures
Open access funding was provided by Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, or publication of the article. The research was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Reichman University, and all participants signed informed consent. The data came from a larger multi-study epidemiological project and are available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Publication Details
The paper, titled “Symbolic Immortality, Mental Health, and Addictions: A Terror Management Perspective,” was written by Uri Lifshin, Dvora Shmulewitz, Maor D. Levitin, Vera Skvirsky, Aaron D. Cherniak, and Mario Mikulincer, all of the Department of Psychology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Center for Addiction and Mental Health. It appeared in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction (received May 4, 2026; accepted August 23, 2026; published online August 31, 2026). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-026-01720-5
