Why/How individual’s who are ill or suffering can (seemingly) “choose” to live or die, but in generally good health we cannot “choose” to simply let go in the same way?

Question

It just seems in certain age or conditions there is a point in which a person can hang on or let go. Why is this not something we have within us at all times? How does the body register this. I understand how organs must be working and bodily systems, too, but how/why does the mind/body only accept this choice to pass on only when suffering?

Edit: I am not referring to physically harming one’s self to end their own life, but more the mental, psychological, & perhaps spiritual realization/decision that automatically influences the body to shut down on its own.

In: Biology

Answer 1

You can choose to die when healthy, it’s just the body is so resilient that it takes a long way to go down usually. By that point people can change their mind and it reverses.

Hope brings a huge benefit into our life and stress when directed to solving a goal is beneficial. I would say these can keep us going during high impact on the body, but hopeless directionless stress can kill you.

You can choose to stop hoping and so thus die at will