12.10.24
That Sense of Impending Doom? Here’s How to Cope
The horrors may persist but so do your coping skills.
If you’re living on planet Earth right now, there’s a good chance you’re no stranger to feeling a sense of impending doom. A dear friend of existential dread, impending doom is a similarly dark and uncanny feeling. It can be hard to describe, but you know it when you feel it. It can feel like a slow-moving tidal wave. An eerie mist. An ominous cloud brewing overhead. Maybe this sinister sensation likes to visit you once in a while when you’re lying in bed at night. Or maybe it’s something you’ve been carrying around pretty much all day every day for a while now.
If there’s one thing you can take comfort in when it comes to this unsettling experience, it’s the fact that you’re not alone. “There are a lot of people who are feeling an impending sense of doom,” says Los Angeles-based psychotherapist John Tsilimparis, MFT. “It's affecting everybody these days.”
So, what is this sense of impending doom, exactly? Why do we get it? (Besides, you know, *gestures broadly at everything*.) When should we seek support for it? And, most importantly, what can we do to stop impending doom from totally killing the vibe?
What is impending doom, exactly?
“It’s the overwhelming sense that something life-threatening or tragic is going to happen, but without any specific, concrete prediction,” says clinical psychologist, speaker, and consultant Jessica Stern, PhD. “People might say, ‘I'm not sure what I'm afraid of specifically, but I feel worried that something bad is going to happen.’”
It’s basically a mix of worry, fear, sadness, anxiousness, and darkness, Dr. Stern says. Like we mentioned, impending doom also has some overlap with existential dread, that terrible sense of despair and anxiety about the uncertainty of life and inevitability of death. Your doomy feels might come with grim thoughts or far-fetched beliefs about the future, Tsilimparis says. Or you might just notice a vague sense of foreboding.
Usually this sense of impending doom crops up amid difficult events or changes going on in your life or the world that “feel scary and overwhelming and beyond your control,” Dr. Stern says. (Like, say, a wave of layoffs in your industry or extreme weather events.) But the level of threat you’re registering “feels much bigger and more abstract than what is specifically going on,” Dr. Stern explains. Like, the-whole-world-is-about-to-end big. However, it’s also totally possible to feel a sense of impending doom that doesn’t seem connected to anything specific going on, Dr. Stern says.
What makes impending doom different from regular ol’ anxiety? How pervasive and intangible it is. Say you’re feeling super anxious about hitting a work deadline, or you have a fear of flying and you’re afraid your flight is going to crash. “That's not impending doom, because it's a very specific, very concrete fear that is directly related to something that [you] are actively experiencing,” Dr. Stern explains. Whereas with impending doom, it's typically harder to pinpoint an exact fear or prediction, or it’s related to stuff outside your immediate experience. (However, impending doom can happen alongside anxiety and other mental health conditions. More on that to come.)
What causes a sense of impending doom?
Our brains have basically evolved to be hyper-aware of potential dangers and make negative predictions about the future, Tsilimparis explains. “We’ve stayed alive because we tend to prioritize fear and negativity.” And that’s pretty useful when facing tangible, specific threats we can do something about (like a tiger that might be hiding in the trees or a long, cold winter).
But in today’s world—where we face so many unknowns and massive, even cataclysmic threats beyond our control—our brain’s tendency to dread the worst can incline us toward a sense of impending doom. “The brain expects that something bad is going to happen… but it can't latch onto something specific,” Dr. Stern explains. “So it creates this general, abstract dark cloud that we get stuck in.”
That vague sense of doomsday being upon us can be triggered by many different external stressors: Collective traumas, current events, existential threats to humanity. “Election dejection, holiday blues, the state of the economy, wars overseas, you name it,” Tsilimparis says. While personal hardships can contribute, it’s usually forces that “feel much bigger than yourself and out of your control” that send you into catastrophizing mode, Dr. Stern says. Think climate change, racism, recessions, political upheavals, government collapses, global pandemics, artificial intelligence gone awry…you get the idea.
Speaking of global pandemics—some of the impending doom we’re experiencing now is actually thanks to the imprints Covid left on our collective psyche. “The pandemic primed us for impending doom,” as Tsilimparis puts it. When we experience enduring threats or traumas (like Covid), we’re conditioned to keep expecting more calamities around the corner, Dr. Stern explains. We just know something terrible is about to happen again. Then a new stressor can “retrigger that lingering collective trauma,” Tsilimparis says.
It’s important to know that the state of the world isn’t the only explanation for a sense of impending doom, though. Sometimes it’s connected to a mental health condition, Tsilimparis points out—like panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or depression. For instance, impending doom that strikes out of the blue can be a precursor to (or sometimes a symptom of) a panic attack, Dr. Stern says. Similarly, someone in a depressive episode might feel a sense of doom underlying pretty much everything, Tsilimparis says.
How to deal with a sense of impending doom
Despite all the doom you’re feeling, there are things you can do to manage or lessen that feeling of imminent devastation. Here’s what the experts recommend.
1. Reel in your news and social media habits.
“Be careful with saturating yourself with too much news,” Tsilimparis says. Staying informed is important, yes. But exposing yourself to a constant flood of alarmist headlines and images is only going to ramp up your sense of dread. (It’s called doomscrolling for a reason.) A few ideas: Turn off news and social media notifications, unfollow accounts that send you spiraling, or set automatic time limits for app use.
2. Focus on your immediate responsibilities.
Instead of spinning out into the future, tend to the things that are present, important to you, and in your sphere of influence. “Take care of your kids, take care of your job, take care of your home, take care of your family,” Tsilimparis says. Redirecting your energy towards what you care about—and can exert some control over—enhances your sense of agency, he explains.
3. Soothe and ground your body.
Just like there are physical symptoms of anxiety that can be brought on when you encounter a perceived threat, a sense of impending doom can trigger a physiological stress response too, explains Tsilimparis.
Grounding techniques and self-care strategies that involve your body can cue to your system that you’re safe and help deactivate that stress response, Tsilimparis says. He recommends things like yoga, stretching, diaphragmatic breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and sensory grounding (observing what you can perceive through your five senses).
4. Do more things that bring you joy.
This one sounds “so obvious and simple,” Dr. Stern concedes. “But the reason it’s important is that in the state of impending doom, the mind is really primed for negative things to happen.” Like we talked about, you’re pretty sensitized to what’s scary or sad. “So providing your mind with opportunities to explore positive or even neutral experiences can be really helpful,” Dr. Stern says. Think cozying up with your favorite fantasy book, having a fun date night with your partner, or visiting a beautiful place in nature and looking for glimmers.
This isn’t about toxic positivity-ing your way out of impending doom, BTW. “It’s not to negate it, but to add some dimension or balance to it,” Dr. Stern says.
5. Write down what you’re feeling.
Dr. Stern recommends doing some journaling the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed by doom, even if you’re not typically a huge journaler. Putting pen to paper can make what you’re experiencing a little more workable. “Impending doom can feel so vague,” Dr. Stern says, “so being able to journal about it and whatever feelings you're experiencing gives you an opportunity to name them.”
Dumping the gloomy contents of your mind onto paper can also help you start separating fact from fiction. “You want to watch the what-ifs and the projections when we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow,” Tsilimparis says. Seeing these things on paper can show you how unlikely they are, Dr. Stern says. “So it sort of breaks down the fears.”
6. Add some structure to your days.
It might feel easier to let go of routines when you’re in a doom cloud, but Tsilimparis encourages the opposite. “It helps to maintain a certain degree of consistency,” he says. “Try sticking to routines and maintaining structure as much as possible.” Regularity in your daily life can be a stabilizing counterforce to the chaos of world events or doomsday scenarios in your head. Something as simple as keeping up with your morning gym routine or bedtime ritual can be grounding for your system.
7. Practice mindfulness.
“When we get caught in the impending doom, it can feel like we’re being dragged down into a pit,” Dr. Stern says. “We can lose a little bit of our perspective on what's happening in the moment.” Mindfulness exercises and meditation (where you rest your attention on something in the present, like the feeling of your breath) are ways to bring yourself back up into the moment and reset your perspective, Dr. Stern says. Over time, a mindfulness practice can also teach you to relate to your doomy thoughts and feelings differently.
8. Talk about it.
Even though impending doom is such a common feeling lately, “it can be very isolating,” Dr. Stern says. It’s easy to feel like you’re a weirdo or you have to face it by yourself—but bottling your feelings up only makes them more overwhelming. So Dr. Stern recommends confiding in a trusted friend or family member who’s a good listener, empathetic, and balanced in their perspective.
Sharing your experience can help normalize it. “You might find out you’re not alone with it,” Tsilimparis says. Talking out your fears might help you see them a little more clearly too. “The more you talk about it, the more it starts to sound a little bit absurd to you,” Tsilimparis says.
9. Think about therapy.
If what you’re feeling is making it hard to function in your daily life or enjoy things, tanking your mood, or making you feel disconnected in relationships, it’s important to seek mental health support, Dr. Stern says. Not only to help with the sense of impending doom, but you may also be dealing with something bigger like depression or an anxiety disorder.
That said, feeling a sense of impending doom is a great excuse to start therapy even if it’s not at that level. “You don’t need to reach a certain threshold of distress in order to pursue therapy,” Dr. Stern says. Talking it out with a pro can help you process, cope with, and even start to shift that sense of impending doom. Because it may be a way-too-common experience these days, but it’s not one you have to go through alone.
Wondermind does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a replacement for medical advice. Always consult a qualified health or mental health professional with any questions or concerns about your mental health.
